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Baka Beyond
Since then, they've worked to spread the Baka people's music and culture through their band, Baka Beyond.
They've also frequently returned to the forest to see the people and to return royalties earned by their music which assist Baka community development projects through their charity Global Music Exchange.
After 22 years of touring around the world Baka Beyond's live show has evolved over the years. The current show includes a multi-media element. Videos from the Cameroon rainforest are projected behind the band, cleverly synchronised with the live music so that the Baka become part of the live show.
It is best described in a review by Pete Taberner in the Bristol Post:
"Seeing and listening to their current live performance [Baka Beyond] transports you right into the life of the people whose music they celebrate.
"Projected onto a large oval screen behind the musicians scenes of forest life provide the perfect backdrop to the music.
"Gentle percussion and reedy sounds are used to evoke the dawn and the awakening insect and bird life. Vocalists Su and Ellie recreate the wordless sounds of the forest creatures.
"It was impossible to resist the relentlessly upbeat nature of the music. There were big smiles on screen, on stage, and in the audience as the music progressed to a final grand dance with everyone standing and moving to the intoxicating rhythm."
The rhythms of the hunter-gatherer Baka People resonate with musical styles from all around the world. Baka Beyond use the spirit of the Baka's music to present their own musical heritage, whether the Rhumba rhythms of Kibi's native Congo, or the Celtic melodies of Martin's Cornish/Welsh heritage, seamlessly combined as can be heard in their latest album, "After the Tempest", Baka Beyond's eighth studio album, released in Spring 2014.
Also carried in the Baka rhythms and in all Baka Beyond performances is the sense of joyous celebration and inclusion that the Baka bring to all their music. The band brings musicians from different cultures and backgrounds together in a seamless celebration of the Global Village.
Awards
Nominated for Best Cross-Cultural collaboration, Songlines 2015
Tags
Baka Beyond: After the Tempest
by James Nadal
Back in 1992, before the term “world music" was prevalently used, British guitarist Martin Cradick and his wife, vocalist Su Hart, went on an expedition into the Cameroon jungle to learn about the music of the Baka Forest People. This led to an interesting cultural collaboration, and an enduring relationship lasting into the present. In the same year, motivated and inspired by their exploration, Cradick and Hart went on to form the band Baka Beyond, and recorded the successful “Spirit ...
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