Buy mp3's: click here		Into the Woods: Musician Martin Cradick, of the band Baka Beyond, is headed back to the rainforest Click Here to go back. Hatford Advocate, Into the Woods: Musician Martin Cradick, of the band Baka Beyond, is headed back to the rainforest >> by John Adamian Anyone who's ever thought it would be fun to travel to some far-off place and record the exotic music of the locals might want to have a chat with Martin Cradick before setting off with passport, microphones and a tape deck. Cradick, who founded the group Baka Beyond, recorded the music of the Baka (one of several ethnic groups known as pygmies) from the Cameroonian rainforest in 1991, and he's been grappling with how best to repay the Baka ever since. After living with the Baka for several months, Cradick returned home to England and released two recordings -- one of his own music inspired by the experience and another of traditional Baka music recorded while he was there. Then he set up a charity funded by the sales of the traditional recording. Sounds simple enough, right? But then there's the tricky problem of figuring out how to get money to a group that lives deep in the rainforest for most of the year. All the while, Cradick has also been trying to pursue his own career with his band, Baka Beyond. The group is a truly multicultural band, with members from Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, the UK and France. They blend African and British instrumentation with penny whistles and fiddles paired up with the kora (a harp) and djembe drums. The music they make is separate from the recordings Cradick has released of traditional Baka songs. The band released East to West recently, its fifth album. And they'll be touring like a proper band soon, but in the meantime, Cradick is making his seventh trip to Cameroon to help see that the money he's helped the Baka earn for themselves winds up in their hands. ATMs and Western Union are out of the question. And even if it were easy to hand over the cash to the Baka, Cradick says there are many, including international aid workers and Cameroonian government officials, who say that giving money to the Baka would be irresponsible. So many people said Oh you can't give money to the pygmies, they'll just spend it on alcohol,' but it's my opinion that it's up to them what they're going to do with that, Cradick said in a phone interview from his home in England. You've got this worry Oh, you're going to change their life,' but their life has changed so much. And after more than a decade of periodic visits with the Baka, Cradick says he's developed a better sense of what the Baka need and want. In the meantime, Cradick has headed back to Cameroon to help build a music house for the Baka -- a place to perform their songs and dances during the months they spend in the Bantu village while not in the forest. You'd think that a group of hunter- gatherers living deep in the forest would have no need for money, but the Baka routinely spend the months of the rainy season in the villages on the periphery, and now it's getting even more difficult for the Baka to go back into the bush to live traditionally. It's a case of the road to hell being paved with the best intentions. They've got problems with environmental groups trying to set up eco-guards' to protect the forest from poachers, said Cradick. The poaching carries on unhindered, and the poor subsistence hunter who's trying to get a little bit of meat for his family is the one who gets the hassle, so they're getting more and more pressure to sedentarize'. To make matters worse, the Baka (and other pygmy groups) are looked down upon by many in Cameroon. In the months that the Baka spend in the Bantu villages, they are expected to work on farms, without much in the way of pay. In addition, the Bantu villagers (a neighboring ethnic group) like to come hear the Baka perform their songs and dances, but until now the Baka have had no way to benefit financially from that. But evidently they've learned a thing or two about the economics of the entertainment business. (The Baka) want us to build this music house so that they can go and perform their music and charge the Bantu people to come and watch, said Cradick. And why is Baka singing and dancing so captivating that people come from around the world, trudge through the dripping rainforest to hear them and even their otherwise disrespectful neighbors are enthralled? Cradick, like several others who spent time with different pygmy groups, says it has to do with the way life in the forest attunes the ear to every sound in the environment. In short -- the Baka are great listeners. It seems like an incredible coincidence to me that we land in the middle of this group and there are so many fantastic musicians, said Cradick. But pygmy people in Africa are really renowned and known for being great musicians and great dancers, and one of the reasons, I'm sure, is not that they've got some gene that makes them good at music. It's that right from the moment they're born, they learn to listen. Because every sound that is there in the rainforest is of potential importance to you in your life.  03/20/03 >> go there Click Here to go back.