Nearly a year ago,

Hans Johnson was sitting inside a Maasai chief's mud-and-dung hut, sheltered from the cool, humid evening of Kenya's rainy season on the Maasai Mara plains.

The chief and a few village elders sat before him. Next to Johnson sat his Maasai friend, guide and translator, Simon Saitoti.

Everyone was jovial, including Johnson, even though he didn't quite know what everyone was smiling about. He had a sparse understanding of Maa, the official dialect of the warrior tribe.

"Simon, have they talked about it yet?" Johnson urgently asked his friend.

"No, no, no. We're just making friends," responded Saitoti in hushed tones.

Evening turned to night and conversations settled down after the group realized they had exhausted Johnson's knowledge of Maa. They shared a pot of tea.

"Don't say anything. Just sit back," Saitoti whispered to Johnson. Then Saitoti got up and approached the chief. After hours of socializing, negotiations were finally beginning.

Johnson, 23, spent April and May among the Maasai, a semi-nomadic tribe in the Rift Valley of Kenya and Tanzania along Africa's east coast. The Duluthian was on his second trip to the area, trying to record indigenous tribal music. He traveled with Saitoti from village to village, negotiating permission and paying for performances.

The most expensive deal was the one that Saitoti was able to negotiate with the chief after that long night: For about $300, eight young warriors would sing five songs.

The next morning, Johnson stood among the warriors who were preparing for the next day's lion hunt, illegal but still pursued as a traditional rite of passage for young males. He wore a microphone headset that allowed him to record onto mini-discs and held a video camera to capture the traditional movements that accompanied the songs.

"Maasai music is like a window into Maasai culture. Each age (group) writes their own songs. They don't take from the old ones," Johnson said. "Songs live and die with each age set. I couldn't find any songs that were over 70 years old."

"Rhythm of the Maasai" will be released at 7 p.m. today in Sacred Heart Music Center, 201 W. Fourth St. The African Drum Ensemble from the University of Minnesota Duluth and St. Mark's Gospel Choir will perform African-influenced music to mark Black History Month.

THREATENED CULTURE

A once powerful tribe, the Maasai were subjugated during British colonial rule during the last half of the 19th century. Known for their warriors, the Maasai lived along the Kenyan highlands and herded cattle. By the early 20th century, the British had relocated the Maasai to the southern region of Kenya on the northern border with Tanzania.

Now numbering about 250,000, the Maasai have struggled to maintain their pastoral lifestyle while becoming surrounded by development and urbanization. Many warriors and young men earn a living by singing traditional songs at tourist lodges in the nearby wildlife preserves.

Maasai culture is threatened once more, this time by the lodges that exploit the Maasai as tourist attractions and develop the region with no regard to environmental and cultural preservation, said Serena Wilcox, executive director of the Maasai Heritage Preservation Foundation. The Georgia-based nonprofit spearheads environmental, health and education projects in the Maasai Mara, a park reserve.

"The problem comes in when there's big money in the Mara," Wilcox said. "There's half a billion dollars generated in the Maasai Mara alone."

Singing is an important element in Maasai culture, Wilcox explained. Songs can identify groups, tribes or age sets. They serve as encouragement, entertainment and capture the immediate history of the people writing them.

The Smithsonian Institute, the International Library of African Music and other large institutions have libraries of recordings of traditional music from around the world. But while many of their CDs preserve music like the Maasai's for future

generations, there's an issue of copyrights and royalties, said Jens Finke, a British writer who wants to collect and digitize traditional music from the Maasai and 41 other tribes in Kenya to create an Internet-based library of music.

"Although recording rights are usually paid for at the time of the recording, it's usually a minute fraction of the profits that can be made," Finke said. "The fact that Hans is plowing the proceeds from his CDs back into the project is a great example of how music ownership should be approached."

Johnson said he doesn't want to own the rights to his recordings. He's exploring ways to let the Maasai own the copyrights so future activists can use the recordings without having to negotiate with Johnson or his heirs.
The Tulsa Zoo and Living Museum in Tulsa, Okla., will use some of Johnson's recordings in its $150,000 interactive Africa exhibit that opens in June, said Kathleen Buck, the exhibit's curator. The museum is building replicas of Maasai huts filled with traditional items, mannequins in Maasai garb and video screens. Johnson's music provides authentic village sounds.
Johnson isn't getting paid for the use of his recordings. Instead the museum will sell his CDs in its gift shop.

HELPING THE MAASAI

Johnson's second trip to Kenya last spring cost him $6,000, most of which came out of his own pocket. But he doesn't plan to pay himself back by selling "Rhythm of the Maasai." Instead he intends to use all the CD proceeds to hire two teachers to set up an adult education program in Namuncha, one of the bigger Maasai communities that he visited.

"Just like they have issues of race here, black against white or whatever, (the Maasai) have issues of educated against uneducated," Wilcox said.

The project will be coordinated by Saitoti through the Osutuwa Welfare Society, a Kenyan nonprofit that Saitoti established.

"(Johnson's) project is extremely worthwhile on several levels.... He's helping preserve the music," Finke said. "Yet at the same time, the act of being seen to be interested in the local culture by locals places a value on that culture that cannot be counted in money, but in terms of self-respect and pride."

"Rhythm of the Maasai" will be Johnson's final project until he can find more money. He plans to return to college in September to pursue a degree in ethnomusicology and has to raise money for tuition.
"It makes me feel like I'm doing something good with my life," Johnson said. "There are people who live in Minnesota all their life and they hear about an African tribe and they have no clue. There's so much you can learn from other people."