Africa Is a Country

Paul Simon’s Graceland Reconsidered

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Paul Simon’s Graceland Reconsidered

By
Sean Henry Jacobs

Paul Simon's Graceland album and tour defied the cultural boycott, yet some argue it positively influenced South African music and politics in the late 1980s.

The cover of "Graceland," first released in 1986.

Last year, 2011, marked the 25th anniversary of Paul Simon’s “Graceland.” The album’s significance hardly needs reminding. It revived Simon’s career, became the first “World Music” crossover hit, won him a Grammy, and sold millions. As usual, celebratory articles appeared in late August, marking the album’s original 1985 release. I was even interviewed for one such retrospective by the news agency, AFP.

“Graceland” certainly warrants a proper retrospective, not just because of its commercial success, but also due to the controversy surrounding its creation: Simon defied the cultural boycott and sanctions; Linda Ronstadt, who defied the Sun City boycott, appeared on the album; critics claimed Simon appropriated local musical styles without proper credit; and Simon has said that Harry Belafonte and Quincy Jones helped set up the trip to South Africa.

The subsequent tour revitalized the careers of Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba, whose careers had suffered due to her marriage to Kwame Toure. It also turned Ladysmith Black Mambazo into international superstars and launched the careers of several other musicians, including Tony Cedras, Morris Goldberg, and Bakithi Khumalo. “Graceland” is notable for blending South African music with sounds from different parts of the continent and American styles. For example, Youssou N’Dour and Demola Adepoju played percussion on the album. At the heart of the Graceland debate lies the morally questionable context in which it emerged, resulting in an extraordinary transnational artistic collaboration.

We’re excited to hear about “Under African Skies,” a new film by American director Joe Berlinger, which has its world premiere at Sundance later tonight. Berlinger has said the film is not a hagiography: “I’m not interested in making a Paul Simon puff piece … Paul was a great collaborator, but I made the film I wanted to make. … They knew who they were hiring.” Unfortunately, none of us will be at Sundance. We’ll reach out to those who attended to hear what they thought, and perhaps Tambay Obenson at Shadow and Act will blog about its screening. Otherwise, we’ll wait for a screening copy or until it reaches one of the cities where AIAC bloggers live.

Here‘s the trailer for the film.

Further Reading

The battle over the frame

As Hollywood recycles pro-war propaganda for Gen Z, Youssef Chahine’s ‘Djamila, the Algerian’ reminds us that anti-colonial cinema once turned imperial film language against its makers—and still can.

Fictions of freedom

K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’ still haunts Cape Town, a city whose beauty masks its brutal exclusions. Two decades later, in the shadow of Amazon’s new development, its truths are more urgent than ever.

When things fall apart

Against a backdrop of global collapse, one exhibition used Chinua Achebe’s classic to hold space for voices from the Global South—and asked who gets to imagine the future.

The General sleeps

As former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s death is mourned with official reverence, a generation remembers the eight years that drove them out.

The grift tank

In Washington’s think tank ecosystem, Africa is treated as a low-stakes arena where performance substitutes for knowledge. The result: unqualified actors shaping policy on behalf of militarists, lobbyists, and frauds.

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahel States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.