Baka Beyond is a world music group formed in 1992 with members from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures, fusing Celtic and other western music styles with traditional Baka music from Cameroon.

Baka Beyond began in 1992, when musicians Su Hart and Martin Cradick (formerly of the group Outback) travelled to south-east Cameroon to live with the Baka tribe in their natural rainforest environment. During their time there they recorded music with the Baka people, and some was later released on their return to the UK on Baka Beyond's first album, Spirit of the Forest.

In the early days of the band, Baka Beyond consisted of English musicians trying to re-create the sound recorded with the Baka people and integrate it into their music, but it eventually grew to include musicians from Senegal, Brittany, Sierra Leone and Ghana.

Martin Cradick and other members of the band travelled back to the rainforest to record music with the Baka people. They have recorded many albums containing a mix of music and sounds directly recorded from the rainforest, and music recorded by the band, which always shows a strong influence from Baka music.

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.

The earliest recorded use^{[citation needed]} of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." ^{[dubious – discuss]} In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.