House of the Baka Beyond (BBC.co.uk)
An
African-Celtic crossover band inspired by the music of a pygmy community
in West Africa has celebrated the construction of a special music house
with their latest album.
The group combine the Baka's music with strong Celtic influences An African-Celtic
crossover band inspired by the music of a pygmy community in West Africa
has celebrated the construction of a special "music house" with
their latest album. The Baka pygmies of southern Cameroon are hunter-gatherers.
They lent their name and music to Baka Beyond, a multi-ethnic group founded
by guitarist Martin CraddIck in 1992.
Their latest project has been to build a "music house" for the Baka, paid for by royalties the band owed the community for their influences and music.
The title of the group's latest album, The Rhythm Tree, refers to this project.
"It was all out of this one tree,"
Cradick told BBC World Service's Outlook programme.
"They all use these trees - they beat on the buttress roots as the bass drum. So we called the album the Rhythm Tree."
Controversial project
Cradick set up Baka Beyond after hearing their music on a visit to Cameroon in 1992.
He played with them at the time and found he was "very inspired." The group is now highly multi-cultural - it includes musicians from Sierra Leone, Senegal, the UK and France. The Baka are finding that instead of being hunters, they are now becoming poachers - through absolutely no fault of their own
Martin Cradick :
Meanwhile, the Music House has now become a centre for the Baka pygmies
and for people wishing to meet with them.
Journalists, for example, had been able to interview the Baka there to find out about the effect of a controversial World Wildlife Fund project.
"The WWF are working with four governments - Gabon, Congo, and the Central African Republic, as well as Cameroon -and they're trying to set up a big park system"
Cradick explained
"They're having to make the laws the same in all the countries, and it's a bit difficult because the WWF, up to now, haven't accepted that there are people living within the park zone. they have only asked the Bantu population, who are all farmers, so all the boundaries are set up around the farms."
"Now the Baka are finding that instead of being hunters, they are now becoming poachers - through absolutely no fault of their own."
Since forming Baka Beyond, Cradick has returned to Cameroon nine times - several in the last three years.
"The last few times, we've been building quite a lot," he added. The last time, I got out and did a lot more recording."