Artists United Against Apartheid

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Artists United Against Apartheid was a protest group set up in 1985 by the guitarist and activist Steven Van Zandt and the producer Arthur Baker. The aim was resistance to apartheid in South Africa. The song Sun City was aimed at the luxury resort of that name, with a casino, in Bophuthatswana, a homeland that the South African government had declared independent. Despite an international boycott, well-known Western artists nevertheless performed there. The journalist Danny Schechter suggested making a different kind of We Are the World out of it: a song about change, not about charity.

Music and breakthrough

Van Zandt, Baker and Schechter searched for months for participants. First a few regular backing singers of Baker's recorded the chorus I ain't gonna play Sun City. On top of that came dozens of voices from very different corners: rappers such as Run-DMC, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Kurtis Blow and Afrika Bambaataa, rockers such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Bono and Peter Gabriel, soul singers such as David Ruffin and Bobby Womack, and jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. All the participants promised never to perform at Sun City.

Influence

The result was a raw, stomping track in which rock, hip hop, funk and soul run together. At the same time the album Sun City came into being, along with a documentary about the recording. Sun City shows that the great benefit projects of the 1980s could also be political, and that hip hop and rock together could carry a message.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1985Sun City

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 7: The 1980s^NL Reader