The hills are alive with the sounds of African-inspired fusion folk music.
First, the Nigerien group Etran Finatawa, a mix of nomadic desert tribal sounds, plays this weekend at the Canmore Folk Music Festival.
Then, on Aug. 4, the Banff Centre presents the return of Baka Beyond, a British world music band, whose sound is based on a fusion of African and European traditions.
Baka Beyond was formed in 1992 after Martin Cradick and Su Hart travelled from their home in Bath, U.K. to Africa to experience the music of the Baka people of Cameroon.
“About 1989 there was a television program on the Baka forest people about the pygmies in Cameroon, and just seeing those people and that music was so central to their life, that I thought I had to go there,” said Cradick in an interview from his home last week. “It was a dream, but a whole series of coincidences fell into place and we found ourselves going there two years later, my wife and I, with a guitar and mandolin.
“We were quite good entertainment value and they took us in and it was some experience,” he explained. “While we’d play music we’d record jams and things and when we got back we reconstructed them in my home studio. Then we released it, as well as field recordings.”
Cradick described the music as African Celtic acoustic dance.
“It’s quite difficult to fit it into particular categories.” he said. “It gets lumped with world music, but that’s a difficult concept. It’s quite mellow music, but it’s danceable as well.
“It’s infectious, joyful. Everyone will be tapping their feet, if they’re not dancing, but it’s not so heavy.”
After a few years of performing the music, Cradick began collaborating with other European-based African musicians.
“I got to meet African musicians in England and they realized the band wasn’t cultural imperialists, and we began playing with some of the best percussionists in this country and it’s just gone from there,” he said. “From those beginnings it’s become more a band of musicians involved in the live performance.
“The band now has moved beyond that. There’s a French guy playing Irish fiddle, and a Congolese base player.”
In those early days of world music, said Cradick, the work sold quite well.
“Suddenly there was this money that belonged to the Baka,” he said. “I go back every year, and because they’re earning money, we set up a charity and went to see how this could be used, and that started a long relationship with them. Life there has changed quite considerably.”
The money from the sale of the music has been used to build a music centre and other facilities for the Baka. While there is criticism that this is damaging the traditional culture of these people, Cradick stressed that change is coming regardless.
“The reality is their life is changing radically anyway,” he said. “Embracing modern music isn’t harming their traditional music, more of the young people there are picking up traditional instruments than before we went there.
“It’s giving them respect from the local people and realizations that their traditions are actually important.”
All of this has been very positive for the Baka, said Cradick.
“They’re not living in a museum,” he said. “The forest is being taken away from them by all sorts of things and having their music recognized in the country and beyond is giving them a voice.
“They’re very bright people. For people who live in a forest, the concepts of the wider world are irrelevant, but the alternative is that their way of life gets wiped out, because they don’t have any status there.
“A journalist in England asked them, ‘Tell me about the good things and the bad things,’ and they said, ‘The conservationists are really bad because they tell us we can’t hunt and feed our children, the loggers are really good because they give us money and we can feed our children.’ They know an awful lot more than people give them credit for.”
Baka Beyond has performed at The Banff Centre numerous times and is always a highlight of their Canadian touring, said Cradick.
“Normally when we’re in Canada we give a concert in Banff,” he said. “Apart from its beautiful scenery and everything and they look after us well, it’s a nice theatre and good sound, what is there not to like about Banff?”
Also on this tour they play Golden, B.C. and the Edmonton Folk Festival.
To hear their music and to learn more about the band, visit the Baka Beyond website at www.bakabeyond.net
