Artists United Against Apartheid--the supergroup that time forgot

It’s Christmas again and so as they do every year, radio stations have blown the dust off their 28-year old copy of “Do they Know It’s Christmas,” the 1984 song for Ethiopian famine relief recorded by one-off supergroup Band Aid that asked a question with a very easy answer—no, because most Ethiopians are Muslim and so Christmas means nothing to them.

But that’s another issue.

Band Aid was the first of a spate of one-off supergroups that popped up in the mid-80s to raise money for various famine-related causes in Africa. The most noteworthy of its successors was, of course, USA for Africa, that brought together dozens of superstars who famously checked their egos at the door to record “We Are The World,” a song that went on to sell in the kajillions and dominated radio airplay in the spring of 1985. These efforts were ultimately and undoubtedly good things, raising hundreds of millions of dollars for famine relief and feeding countless numbers of Africans.

But the thing about these songs is that none of them are very good; bland, unimaginative adult contemporary music with shallow, inoffensive lyrics that were mostly interested in tugging heart strings as quickly as possible. This only made sense, really, because when you’re trying to raise as much money as you can to feed starving people, you’re not going to encourage donors to open their wallets by challenging or offending them, and crappy songs are a small price to pay to feed millions. The hungry child who finally has something to eat doesn’t care that his food was paid for by a song that sucks.

But that was not the case with another song by another one-off supergroup that released an awareness single at the same time—Artists United Against Apartheid, organized by Steven Van Zandt to protest the evils of the apartheid system in South Africa and the loathsome, hands off policy of the Regan Administration. The group’s single, “Sun City,” is by far the best song in the genre, as admittedly small as the genre is.

“Sun City” featured an impressive lineup of contemporary stars that matched USA for Africa or Band Aid for the time (just a few: Hall and Oates, Jackson Brown, Pat Benatar and Bruce Springsteen, Van Zandt’s former E Street Band boss), as well as soon to be stars (Bonnie Raitt, Bono, captured in the video still shot above at the exact second he went from sincere to sanctimonious), and a bunch of musical legends (Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Ringo Starr). But what set AUAA apart from the other supergroups, and what gave the collective its musical advantage, was that the song was more concerned with raising awareness to an evil political system and less concerned with raising money, so it didn’t need to appeal to the broadest audience it could. That meant Van Zandt and the rest could produce a song with artistic and political integrity instead of worrying about sales and fundraising.

With that freedom, they put together a song as tough, muscular and original in every way that “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and “We Are the World” are antiseptic and derivative. Opening with a huge African drum beat laced with a searing Davis sax solo, it segues into a choral chant of Amandla, Awethu, Zulu words for power that served as a rallying cry for blacks living in South Africa. When the vocals kick in, pioneering rap acts like Run DMC and Kool Moe Dee lay out the song’s purpose.

As the song progresses, it keeps throwing more and more styles into the mix, with fragments of pop, rock, rap, R&B, jazz and indigenous African rhythms creating a massive, cross cultural wall of sound that is, yes, easy to dance to (it was produced by Arthur Baker, who basically invented the dance mix), until it finally wraps up with a another vicious sax solo, this one from Clarence Clemons.

This mixing of pop and African styles had been done before—by Peter Gabriel in “Biko,” for instance, and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s 1984 album Somewhere in Afrika featured an entire side of African-themed music condemning apartheid (yes Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, of all groups). But no one had fused so many styles so seamlessly, or as epically, as AUAA. Lined up with Band Aid or USA for Africa, “Sun City” was an in your face blast, and that toughness extended to the song’s politics, a direct broadside against the Reagan Administration’s policy of constructive engagement that was little more than coddling a Cold War ally (“they may be dictators, but they’re our dictators”) with an occasional request to please, go easy on your Negroes. This less-than-wrist-slapping policy did nothing but encourage the apartheid government’s ability to dig in against its opponents and sic dogs, fire hoses and APC-riding police officers on demonstrating blacks. Countries around the world condemned South Africa, withdrawing ambassadors and divesting themselves financially, while the U.S. government, for all practical purposes, did nothing, leading to the line in the song “please tell me why are we always on the wrong side?”

The target of the song—Sun City itself— was a luxury resort located in one of a collection of nominally independent black homelands around South Africa that were small, isolated, and completely dependent economically and politically on the apartheid regime, and so not independent at all. The Sun City resort catered to the world’s white elite, in part by attracting superstar entertainers who became a target of a boycott by anti-apartheid activists. Hence the song’s refrain, “I ain’t gonna play Sun City.”

Now, it’s one thing to stake out a political position that says hunger is bad and we should feed those who have no food, and to please keep them in mind at Christmas—it’s noble, kind-hearted and generous, but hardly controversial. It’s quite another thing to call out an ally on its evil political system, and your own government that allows that evil to fester. This is a great way to alienate about half your audience.

Which “Sun City” did. Many radio stations refused to play the song and some record stores refused to sell it, objecting to its hardball politics on a topic more complex and hot button than simply feeding hungry people. It’s easy to know how to feel about ending poverty—it’s a good thing! And I can give money to make it happen and feel better about myself! It’s a lot harder to think about something that’s infinitely more nuanced, and isn’t as easy for an individual to solve that doesn’t require writing your congressman or attending a rally.

Sun City’s star power did manage to bring it some degree of success—any song released in 1985 with Springsteen, Benatar and Hall and Oates was going to generate attention. The single and its accompanying LP sold a few million copies, the video was in heavy rotation on MTV for a time, and it even managed to slip into the top 40, peaking at 38 on Billboard’s Hot 100. But that was small potatoes compared to the success of Band Aid and USA for Africa just a few months earlier.

Even today, the song has been largely forgotten. Check out the YouTube hits—the various links to the “We Are The World” video are pushing 100 million hits. “Do They Know It’s Christmas” is closing in on 10 million. “Sun City” hasn’t even reached 250,000, a number that “Gangnam Style” hits every afternoon.

Still, it’s possible the song had more lasting impact than either USA for Africa or Band Aid. Artistically, “Sun City” laid the groundwork for some truly remarkable hybrid music in the years to come that combined otherwise seemingly incongruous styles that stretched across genres and continents. Just a few months later, Paul Simon released his landmark album Graceland, one of the finest collections of music ever recorded, and Run-DMC and Aerosmith combined for “Walk This Way,” one of only a handful of songs that you can say truly changed the world.

Politically, too, the song carved out a legacy as part of a growing chorus of disenchantment with constructive engagement that eventually forced U.S. policymakers to adopt a harder edge toward South Africa, and pushed more American businesses and organizations to divest themselves from South Africa’s economy. Within a decade of “Sun City’s” release, Nelson Mandela walked free as the leader of a black majority government, and apartheid rotted in history’s dustbin as yet one more failed idea.