Baka Beyond
Willing Spirits
by Anil Prasad

It's one thing to integrate distant musical ideas and another to actually immerse oneself in the spirit, culture, and everyday lives of the people whose influence is sought. British composer and guitarist Martin Cradick took the latter approach when first planting the seeds for what became Baka Beyond, an act renowned for merging the music and ideals of Cameroon's Baka Forest People with other West African and Western sounds.

"I don't believe new ideas or art forms appear out of nowhere, but always through the marriage of previously established ideas that fuse and create a new one," said Cradick, 39, of the philosophies behind Baka Beyond's approach. "This can be seen in many areas, from the rise of Renaissance art when the Christian world met the Muslim world, to the birth of blues where African and European music met. In traveling around the world, playing music and jamming with people of very different musical traditions, I try to find where the similarities are. Once you find them, you have a starting point to build from. If you dogmatically stick to your own tradition and refuse to bend at all, then it becomes impossible to find a fusion. This is true in life as well."

Baka Beyond's music is steeped in joy and celebration. The band's lineup includes four musicians from West Africa and four from Europe. Together, they explore the realm of acoustic dance music full of addictive melodies and rhythms built around influences from the Baka pygmies. The uplifting sound is captured in all its splendor on the group's fourth (and most recent) studio release, Sogo.

Like previous Baka Beyond albums, Sogo offers reflections of Cradick's ongoing association with the Baka. The roots of that relationship reside in his initial desire to learn about the Baka firsthand after being introduced to their philosophies of life via the media. He found himself so enamored by their outlook that he and his wife, Baka Beyond vocalist Su Hart, chose to pack a tent, tape recorder, camera, guitar, and mandolin and set off to spend six weeks living with them and absorbing their values and beliefs.

"We first saw them on a Channel 4 documentary by Phil Agland," said Cradick. "The way music was so incorporated into everyday life and the way it was approached with such fun and irreverence struck a chord with me. At first, it was a dream to go and visit them, but a series of coincidences fell into place so that in December 1990 we set off to Cameroon, spending New Year's Eve in the Moscow airport to witness the end of the U.S.S.R., and arrived in Cameroon in 1991."

Although Cradick knew the trip would be transforming, he couldn't have predicted how influential the Baka's musical perspective would be on him.

"Their music is at once simple and incredibly complex," he explained. "It is a backdrop to their whole life. It is very common to hear someone playing an instrument or singing on their own. The other everyday sounds and conversations fall into the rhythm of that music until the whole camp is singing and playing along. It isn't possible to see when the conversations stop and the music starts.

"For the Baka, music is used both for spiritual things and general enjoyment. The same songs can be used for both aspects, depending on the circumstances. Much of their music, particularly the polyphonic singing, is composed of many relatively simple parts that create a much more complex whole. The individual parts on their own are meaningless. As a result, the music is used to hold the group together and to heal differences. We witnessed several occasions when there had been a big argument, but the people later played music together and completely healed any rifts through the togetherness achieved in their music-making.

"The Baka and other pygmy groups are respected throughout Africa for their music. This starts from the moment they take part in any social interaction, even as babies. From the moment they enter the forest world, every sound they hear is of importance to their life. In the forest you can't see far, so sound is how you know what is coming, where you are, where your food is, and where danger is. As a result, all the Baka learn to listen. In our world, there are many sounds that are irrelevant to our lives, especially in an industrialized country. We therefore learn from an early age to filter out irrelevant sounds. In other words, we learn to not hear. I believe this is why the Baka are such phenomenal musicians. Ninety percent of music is the ability to listen sensitively. For the Baka, that ability is their survival."


This is an excerpt from issue #92.