Vitola Description
Pygmy Petite Corona, 4 x 46 The general category Europeans imposed on the Baka and other Central African forest peoples. The category is theirs in name only.
Bantu Petite Robusto, 4 x 52 The expansion-era language family that displaced and surrounded the Baka. The Baka kept their own language and their own forest.
Ota Benga Petite Gordo, 4½ x 60 The Mbuti man purchased for a pound of salt and a bolt of cloth and displayed in a cage at the Bronx Zoo in 1906. His name on this band is an unflinching record of what categorization by others can cost.
Poki Short Perfecto, 5 x 50 A traditional Baka social institution and song form. The internal life the categorizers never bothered to record.
Acephalous Robusto Extra, 5 x 56 “Without a head.” The anthropological term for societies organized without centralized leadership — which is how the Baka have organized themselves through every empire that surrounded them.
Jengi Gran Corona, 5¾ x 46 The Baka forest spirit. The being to whom the molimo ceremony is sung.
Hunter Gatherer Gran Toro, 6 x 54 The mode of subsistence the Baka have practiced continuously for thousands of years. The category that, for a long time, the academic literature treated as backwardness.
Limited Editions
Vitola Description
Pygmy Bambuti Petite Corona Prensado, 4 x 46P The Mbuti, one of the Pygmy peoples of the Ituri Forest in the Congo Basin.
Ota Benga Bronx Zoo Petite Gordo Prensado, 4½ x 60P The full record. The brand does not soften the reference.
Gran Perfecto Gran Perfecto, 5 5/8 x 60 The figurado tapered at both ends — the most demanding shape in any roller’s repertoire. The portfolio’s recurring LE expression of each blend’s outer limits.
Yelli Gran Toro Prensado, 6 x 54P The polyphonic vocal music of the Baka. Sung continuously, without stopping, through nights of ceremony.