Those of us who grew up in the 1980s became familiar with images from Ethiopia showing the starvation and desperation on our televisions. We also became well acquainted with celebrities using their status to try and motivate people to giving to a variety of relief efforts. The music world spearheaded these charity drives with a string of singles and a major world-wide concert between late 1984 and Summer 1985.
British super group Band Aid came out with “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” in 1984 which inspired Harry Belafonte to organize an American version, which soon came in the form of USA for Africa, an even bigger super group that featured artists from Dan Akroyd to Stevie Wonder, singing a song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and conducted by Quincy Jones.
It shouldn’t be understated the speed in which this response/addendum was accomplished as that is certainly a reflection of both the time period of the 1980s and its advanced communications as well the pop music pattern of the previous 30 years or so when British and American acts traded music back and forth over and over again.
The podcast about USA for Africa’s “We Are the World” was recorded on the spot at the NCSS Conference in Nashville with CeCe Payne of the History Co:Lab. She works on a student-powered podcast called Untextbooked, which as of the day this episode was published, had just been nominated for an Ambie Award for best history podcast.
We discussed how the entire experience of making “We Are the World” speaks to the social and global awareness of the era, and the desire that existed among the rich and famous to use their talents for good. But there is a tinge of self-satisfaction involved in this record, wanting to be recognized for doing good deeds rather than just doing the good deeds. Again, this is a reflection of the times.
Africa is a giant continent and there are many parts of it that were suffering in that time, and still struggle today. But by assigning “Africa” as the destination for all the aid, it comes across, again, as a bit oblivious. In an attempt to come across as egalitarian the cavalcade of dozens of music stars come across elitist.
Ultimately, though, “We Are the World” is a testament to the skills of the organizers, including and perhaps especially Michael Jackson in balancing all of the egos and attitudes to record it over a pair of sessions in January of 1985. Rock stardom had hit the culture pretty hard by this point and keeping everyone in check to get the job done was a success in and of itself.
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