Lemur Sounds + Beatboxing = Sick Beats for Conservation | National Geographic

I studied lemurs in the wild in
Madagascar and when I first got there
nobody had studied their calls at all
what I’ve been studying him for 30 years
so I pretty well got to all the
languages down now
though I knew about Ben that he had been
working with birdsongs
and that he was incorporating them
together into new kind of music and I
thought why is he using Byrd sucks when
lemurs have much more interesting song
I started playing recording that I was
just like I had no idea they were so
musical and that their tones could be so
evocative of different situations and an
emotion some of them have kind of these
piggish grunts and he’s like me ain’t
kind of deep things
then they’ll defy your expectations and
have that soaring and recall them and
when they sing together they actually
form musical chords so for the purposes
of structuring it in music you do get a
chance to both pay tribute to the fact
that you’re working with an injury voice
but it is also echoing the fundamental
rules of this human musical system is
created
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what do I hear when I hear Ben’s music I
spent a lot of time in Brooklyn
so here the Brooklyn beat there well
then I spent a lot more time in
rainforests and what he has done to
incorporate the kinds of songs from the
rainforest it’s a real song of life and
it brings joy to my heart I can’t wait
to actually play some of Ben’s music
back to those lemurs in the forest I’m
just in a totally different headspace
now having gone through very musical
process of accessing this of animals has
inspired me to learn more about them so
I’m hoping that by doing this and share
other people that I can share that
inspirational process the inescapable
reality is that lemurs are something
most greatly endangered animals on the
planet in some ways it’s it’s wonderful
to be able to preserve things through
audio but in my mind it’s it’s pointless
if it doesn’t inspire protection of the
animal itself you know Madagascar the
melon geyser people have a lot of
challenges because it’s a very poor
country but you know life is more than
just cash crops and getting funding
there’s also celebrations there’s also
celebrating who you are being proud of
your family being proud of your country
being proud of your heritage and lemurs
are partners after them
with this new innovation of bringing the
lemurs into the music this will be the
glue for the conservation project I
think it’s gonna be a new conservation
tool
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