Itutu, which literally translates as "cool

Cool (aesthetic)

Something regarded as cool is an admired aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style, influenced by and a product of the Zeitgeist. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning. It has associations of...

" from the Yoruba language

Yoruba language

Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...

, has been used by the Yoruba

Yoruba people

The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...

 and more recently by Africanist art historians to describe the aesthetic that characterizes much Yoruba and some African-American art. An "Itutu" aesthetic includes the appearance of a calm, collected face that is found in much Yoruba sculpture

Yoruba traditional art

The Yoruba of South Western Africa , have a very rich and vibrant artisan community, creating traditional and contemporary art...

. It has been suggested by Robert Farris Thompson of Yale University that Itutu is the origin of the American idea of the "cool". His 1973 article "An Aesthetic of the Cool" traces the idea of "Itutu" from the Yoruba to several other African civilizations and finally to the Americas, where the descendents of Africans perpetuated the importance of being "cool".