Baka Beyond

Last updated

Baka Beyond
OriginUnited Kingdom/Cameroon
Genres Celtic, Baka music, world
Years active1992–present
Members
  • Su Hart (UK)
  • Martin Cradick (UK)
  • Paddy Le Mercier (France)
  • Ayodele Scott (Sierra Leone)
  • Seckou Keita (Senegal)
  • Kibisingo Douglas (Congo)
  • Denise Rowe (UK)
  • Tim Robinson (UK)
  • Clyde Kramer
  • Ellie Jamison
Past members
  • Eleanor Churchlow
  • Sam Djengue (Cameroon)
  • Mark Pinto
  • Nii Tagoe (Ghana)
  • Lakh Niasse (Senegal)
Website The Baka Beyond website

Baka Beyond is a world music group formed in 1992 with members from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures, fusing Celtic and other western music styles with traditional Baka music from Cameroon. [1]

Contents

Biography

Location of pygmy peoples African Pygmies (labeled).png
Location of pygmy peoples
Baka dancers in the East Province of Cameroon Baka dancers June 2006.jpg
Baka dancers in the East Province of Cameroon

Baka Beyond began in 1992, when vocalist Su Hart and her partner – guitar, mandolin and bouzouki player Martin Cradick (formerly of the group Outback) travelled to south-east Cameroon to live with the Baka tribe (hunter-gatherer Pygmies) in the rainforest and record their music. [1] The band was inspired by the Baka, [2] "one of the oldest and most sensitive musical cultures on earth". [3] Su Hart said "It was the amazing bird-like singing or yelli that first attracted me, ... The women get together before the dawn to sing, enchant the animals of the forest and ensure that the men's hunting will be successful. Song and dance are used by the Baka for healing, for rituals, for keeping the community together and also for pure fun." [2] [4]

In the early days of the band, Baka Beyond consisted of English musicians trying to re-create the sound recorded with the Baka people and integrate it into their music. Joined by Breton fiddler Paddy Le Mercier, Cradick and Hart recorded two albums with musicians from the Baka tribe: Spirit of the Forest, released in 1994; and The Meeting Pool , released in October 1995. The group continued to evolve into a touring ensemble with the addition of Senegalese percussionist Sagar N'Gom, an ex-member of Outback; keyboardist Tom Green, formerly of the Orb; drummer Sam Pope; bassist Marcus Pinto; and vocalist Kate (Budd) Hardy. Baka Beyond's 1998 album, Journey Beyond, was a more heavily produced project featuring guests including percussionists from the Ghanaian band Kakasitsi. [1] The international nature of the band eventually grew to include musicians from Senegal, Brittany, Sierra Leone, Congo and Ghana as well as Cameroon and Britain. [5]

The relationship with the Baka themselves has grown with regular return visits keeping the band's inspiration strong. [2] [6] Over twenty years Martin Cradick and other members of the band travelled back to the rainforest to record music with the Baka people. They have recorded many albums containing a mix of music and sounds directly recorded from the rainforest, and music recorded by the band, which always shows a strong influence from Baka music. The band touring all the world (the Czech Republic, Spain, France, Portugal, Greece and Britain), Baka Beyond have played at WOMAD and Glastonbury, as well as headlining the Vancouver Folk-Roots Festival. Their tracks are often heard on TV soundtracks, particularly in nature programmes, and have been nominated for the BBC Radio 3 World Music listeners' awards. [4] [7]

Baka Beyond often perform with Rinky Dink, a mobile musical sound system that operates on power provided by two bicycles and solar panels.

Activism

Much of the profit from Baka Beyond's albums has been spent improving things in the rainforest, and a new music house [8] – a large 'music house' with recording equipment – was built at the request of the tribe. [6] [9] The title of the group's 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." [10] Through the charity Global Music Exchange [2] Baka Beyond continue to work with the Baka with healthcare, education and in obtaining national ID cards that give the Baka basic rights as citizens, normally denied them due to their extreme poverty and "unconventional" lifestyle. The Music House has now become a centre for the Baka pygmies – and for people wishing to meet with them, [10] this ongoing relationship with the Baka community has helped the tribe win land rights and recognition as Cameroonian citizens. [4]

Artistry and sound

Band member Seckou Keita playing in Albany, Western Australia. Seckou Keita Albany March 2009.jpg
Band member Seckou Keita playing in Albany, Western Australia.

"If there has to be a definition of world music, this is it" said BBC's Andy Kershaw. [2]

Baka Beyond's sound is a fusion of music influenced by the Baka people, African rhythms and traditional Celtic tunes. [9] A combination of soul-stirring West African traditional rhythms, singing and dance of the Baka, with Celtic folk harmonies and singing, [11] [12] "with powerful percussion section, rhythmic guitar and fiery fiddle…" [13] Each musician has contributed their own style to the band. Baka Beyond is a collaborative music process, learned from the Baka people – 'everyone to be listened to'. [6] Generally, their songs contain strong rhythms, traditional Baka singing style and exotic instruments including marimba, djembe, ning nong, soga, kongoma, kpanlogo, tama, kalabash and kora (African Harp). According to the Guardian "They are an infuriatingly jovial multi-racial band" ..."and would be utterly intolerable if it weren't for the fact that they are remarkably good musicians and impressively idealistic." [9] Other reviewers have found "It was impossible to resist the relentlessly upbeat nature of the music" [12] "The party atmosphere is irrepressible," says the Evening Standard. "If you are not dancing, maybe you should have someone check your pulse." [11]

Other projects

Discography

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mickey Hart</span> American percussionist

Mickey Hart is an American percussionist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 until February 1971, and again from October 1974 until their final show in July 1995. He and fellow Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann earned the nickname "the rhythm devils".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Happy Mondays</span> English alternative rock band

Happy Mondays are an English rock band formed in Salford in 1980. The original line-up was Shaun Ryder (vocals), his brother Paul Ryder (bass), Gary Whelan (drums), Paul Davis (keyboard), and Mark Day (guitar). Mark "Bez" Berry later joined the band onstage as a dancer/percussionist. Rowetta joined as a second vocalist in 1990. They were initially signed to Tony Wilson's Factory Records label.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pygmy peoples</span> Ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short

In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature for populations in which adult men are on average less than 150 cm tall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Kreutzmann</span> American drummer (born 1946)

William Kreutzmann Jr. is an American drummer and founding member of the rock band Grateful Dead. He played with the band for its entire thirty-year career, usually alongside fellow drummer Mickey Hart, and has continued to perform with former members of the Grateful Dead in various lineups, and with his own bands BK3, 7 Walkers and Billy & the Kids.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pygmy music</span>

Pygmy music refers to the sub-Saharan African music traditions of the Central African foragers, predominantly in the Congo, the Central African Republic and Cameroon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Weir</span> American musician; member of the Grateful Dead

Robert Hall Weir is an American musician and songwriter best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the group disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead. Weir also founded and played in several other bands during and after his career with the Grateful Dead, including Kingfish, the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnites, Scaring the Children, RatDog, and Furthur, which he co-led with former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. In 2015, Weir, along with former Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, joined with Grammy-winning singer/guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti to form the band Dead & Company. The band remains active.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deep Forest</span> French electronic music group

Deep Forest is a French music project that originally began as a duo consisting of Michel Sanchez and Éric Mouquet. They compose a style of world music, sometimes called ethnic electronica, mixing ethnic with electronic sounds and dance beats or chillout beats. Their sound has been described as an "ethno-introspective ambient world music". They were nominated for a Grammy Award in 1994 for Best World Music Album, and in 1995 they won the Award for the album Boheme. The group also became World Music Awards Winner – French group with the highest 1995 world sales. Their albums have sold over 10 million copies. Sanchez started his own career as a singer in 2005, while Mouquet continued working under the band's original name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aka people</span> Nomadic Mbenga pygmy people

The Aka or Biaka are a nomadic Mbenga pygmy people. They live in south-western Central African Republic and in northern Republic of the Congo. They are related to the Baka people of Cameroon, Gabon, northern Congo, and southwestern Central African Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baka people (Cameroon and Gabon)</span> African ethnic group

The Baka people, known in the Congo as Bayaka, are an ethnic group inhabiting the southeastern rain forests of Cameroon, northern Republic of the Congo, northern Gabon, and southwestern Central African Republic. They are sometimes called a subgroup of the Twa, but the two peoples are not closely related. Likewise, the name "Baka" is sometimes mistakenly applied to other peoples of the area who, like the Baka and Twa, have been historically called pygmies, a term that is now considered derogatory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afrirampo</span> Japanese rock band

Afrirampo is a band from Osaka, Japan. The band was active from 2002 to 2010 and announced a reform in 2016. The members are Oni and Pikachu. Afrirampo has toured with Sonic Youth and Lightning Bolt, played with Yoko Ono collaborated with Acid Mothers Temple and released several CDs on various labels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muruga Booker</span> American musician

Steven Bookvich known as Muruga Booker is an American drummer, composer, inventor, artist, recording artist, and an autonomous Eastern Orthodox priest.

Outback were a world music group founded in the late 1980s by multi-instrumentalists Graham Wiggins and Martin Cradick. The group fused traditional Australian tribal music, represented primarily through Wiggins's didgeridoo, with modern Western music, mostly Cradick's steel-string guitar. Before the band dissolved in 1992, it had been joined by Senegalese percussionist Sagar N'Gom, French violinist Paddy Le Mercier and drummer Ian Campbell.

Su Hart is a British musician, as of 2006 living in Bath, UK, and vocalist of the band Baka Beyond which was formed in 1992, when she and her partner, guitar, mandolin and bouzouki player Martin Cradick travelled to south-east Cameroon to live with the Baka tribe in the rainforest and record their music. The band was inspired by the Baka, "one of the oldest and most sensitive musical cultures on earth".

Atna Jean Emmanuel (Manu) Njock, aka Zekuhl, is a singer, guitarist, percussionist and a songwriter of world music. He presents a Bolbo-Jazz style. He sings in Bàsàa, French and English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sikiru Adepoju</span> Musical artist

Sikiru Adepoju is a Nigerian percussionist and recording artist, primarily in the genres of traditional African music and world music. He plays a variety of instruments and styles.

Baka is a dialect cluster of Ubangian languages spoken by the Baka Pygmies of Cameroon and Gabon. The people are ethnically close to the Aka, the two together called the Mbenga (Bambenga), but the languages are not related, apart from some vocabulary dealing with the forest economy, which suggests the Aka may have shifted to Bantu, probably 15000 people have shifted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LZ7</span>

LZ7 are an English Christian electronic dance music group from Manchester. The band was formed in 2005 by Lindz West, a member of dance band The Tribe, who had split up the previous year. LZ7 worked for many years as a part of the Christian charity The Message Trust, working with tens of thousands of teenagers each year in schools across Greater Manchester, Maidenhead and Reading. In 2012 LZ7 moved on from being part of the Message Trust and moved under the banner of independent charitable organisation "Light". The group is fronted by West who is the band's lead singer and rapper. In recent years LZ7 have moved into more mainstream areas, collaborating with artists such as Silentó and supporting Jason Derulo on his '2 Sides World Tour'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Halluci Nation</span> Canadian electronic music group

The Halluci Nation, formerly known as A Tribe Called Red, is a Canadian electronic music group who blend instrumental hip hop, reggae, moombahton and dubstep-influenced dance music with elements of First Nations music, particularly vocal chanting and drumming. Based in Ottawa, Ontario, the group consists of Tim "2oolman" Hill, and Ehren "Bear Witness" Thomas. Former members include co-founder DJ Jon Deck and Dan "DJ Shub" General, who left the band for personal reasons in spring 2014, and was replaced by Hill. Co-founder Ian "DJ NDN" Campeau left the band for health reasons in October 2017, with the band opting to remain a duo for the time being.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beyond the Black</span> German symphonic metal band

Beyond the Black is a German symphonic metal band formed in 2014 in Mannheim. Their debut album Songs of Love and Death became popular immediately after the release, and entered the German and Austrian national music charts.

<i>The Meeting Pool</i> 1995 studio album by Baka Beyond

The Meeting Pool is an album by Baka Beyond, released in 1995. It was a collaboration between British musicians and the Cameroonian Baka. Martin Cradick, the founder and guitar player for the group, decided to make a second album after the success of the first, Spirit of the Forest.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Baka Beyond". AllMusic.com. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "BAKA BEYOND (Portugal & Spain)". virtualWOMEX. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  3. "Baka Beyond". WOMAD. Archived from the original on 13 October 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Who are the Baka Pygmies? And what are they doing in Gateshead?". BBC Tyne . 21 April 2006. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  5. "Baka Beyond Discography". Discogs. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 "Baka Beyond". World Music Central. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  7. "Seckou Keita". African Musicians Profiles. Archived from the original on 16 October 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  8. "The Music House", Radio Netherlands Archives, April 26, 2004
  9. 1 2 3 Denselow, Robin (19 March 2005). "Baka Beyond, Cargo, London". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  10. 1 2 "House of the Baka Beyond". BBC News . London: BBC. 16 March 2005. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  11. 1 2 "Music Baka Beyond at Colston Hall". Archived from the original on 13 October 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  12. 1 2 Taberner, Pete (30 September 2013). "REVIEW: Baka Beyond, Colston Hall". Bristol Post. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  13. "Baka Beyond". Ethnoambient. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  14. "EtE". baka.co.uk. 2004. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  15. "One Heart : Global Music Exchange". 1heart.org. 2014. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  16. "Orchéstre Baka Gbiné". baka.gbine.com. 2014. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  17. "Artists | March Hare Music". march-hare-music.com. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  18. "Baka Gbiné – Ewoundo". bakabeyond.net. 2012. Archived from the original on 22 August 2014. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  19. Lewis, Paul (25 April 2006). "Paul Lewis meets Baka Pygmies, musicians in 'a bid to save their rainforest'". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  20. "Arba Minch Festival of Music and Dance". myspace.com. 2014. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  21. "Under the Volcano". cameroontogether.com. 2011. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  22. "The Forest Voices Tour". forestvoices.com. 2014. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  23. "Cargo – Event – Baka-Beyond-Live-Album-Launch" . Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  24. Church, Michael (10 May 2009). "Album: Baka Beyond, Beyond the Forest, (March Hare)". The Independent. London. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  25. "Music of the Rainforest: Baka Beyond Release "After the Tempest"". Roots and Beats. Archived from the original on 2 June 2014. Retrieved 1 June 2014.