First night recording men's songs in the rainforest
The video clip below shows Louis Sarno talking about the first time Bayaka men took him into the rainforest in 1987 to record their songs, and is part of a series of video interviews with Louis that were recorded in April 2012.
On the 13th March 1987 a group of Bayaka men took Louis Sarno into the rainforests to record their music for the first time. This playlist is a full record of more than two hours of non-stop singing and performance. Louis Sarno recalls that many of the finest male singers were present here, including Mokoko, Engbeté, Ngongo, and Mbilima. Engbeté leads many of the songs, and the men move through lots of different repertoire including So, gano, and hunting songs. The men also performed a fake gorilla hunt, and another hunt that included the sounds and signals used to impersonate and trap animals. Bayaka women's polyphony is particularly well known and recorded, so this playlist of dedicated male singing is especially rare and important.
