In 1998, members of the Athens-based MOYUBA Afro Caribbean Drum Ensemble visited Haiti to learn as much as possible about the seductive, percussive music they'd been playing for the past three years.

"We tried to get to the real root of the music by studying with people who do it for real," said ?MOYUBA member Kane Stanley earlier this year. "We've received their stamp of approval and we're running with that. Once you find out what's real, then you can play with it, but until you learn, it's hard to take liberties with it."

The group - comprised of Stanley, Ryan "Manito" Wendel, Dusty Brown, Eric Crosby and Swen Froemke - isn't scheduled to return to Haiti anytime soon, but the Caribbean nation has never been far from the collective thoughts of band members. And when the call was placed in October to help out with a fundraiser for people in northeast Haiti, ?MOYUBA was happy to comply.

The group will be joined Friday at Little Kings by the Shakti Project, Ellen Bleir's Afro-Hatian dance class and One L for a concert benefiting Bethlehem Ministries, a nonprofit agency founded in 1993 to support school construction and other building projects in Haiti.

Source : www.onlineathens.com