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Downloaded from
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A remarkable album called Graceland
by singer Paul Simon

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grew out of a trip
that he made to South Africa.

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The Graceland album started out
a cross-cultural experiment.

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It has become a worldwide hit.

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Five million copies have been sold so far.

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I really wasn't thinking that Graceland was
gonna have this kind of effect on people.

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I didn't think of it as anything other than
a really interesting...

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- Something you loved.
- Yeah.

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Right. It was a music that I... Exactly.

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But you can't miss the political side,
you know.

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Paul Simon's Graceland's a big success,
but it's also controversial.

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Because Simon recorded the album
in South Africa,

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and critics say he should have had
nothing to do with the racist country.

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The conscience of the world
must be awakened

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to the horror of apartheid in South Africa.

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We are calling upon all international
artists to stay away from our country.

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- What made you to go there?
- I was invited there.

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I was invited by black musicians.

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When the artist gets into some sort of
disagreement with politics,

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why are the politicians designated to be the
ones to tell us, the artists, what to do?

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And we're supposed to follow, otherwise
we're not good citizens or we're not good...

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You're not allowed to think,
you're not allowed to feel,

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or have a political opinion.
That's nonsense, man.

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I remember when Graceland first came out

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there was some controversy about it,

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and so it was just
one of those things like,

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"Well, it's controversy,
I'm not gonna buy that album."

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But when I went to hear him perform in
a concert in Chicago,

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I was infected by the music,

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I was overcome by the music,
and had to have the music.

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Graceland was the Paul Simon record
that kind of

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rocked a little harder
than some of the ones just before that.

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The ones just before, of course,
had great songs on,

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but this one kind of had
a little bit more low end going on.

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Music is the most unifying thing
I've ever seen.

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Cultures have been
swapping information for so...

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There's only 12 notes, man.

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Until God gives us 13,

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we all got the same materials to work with
for 500 years, 12 notes.

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This is what music is.
It's the voice of God, you know.

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Don't you think?

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Yeah, I do.

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Your number one news and talk station.

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I want to mention Paul Simon.

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He's currently visiting South Africa,

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commemorating the 25th anniversary
of the release of Graceland.

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He plans to reunite
the South African musicians

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involved with the original project.

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The last time I was here
was when we played.

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It was a long time ago.
It was a long time ago.

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I expect to see a lot of changes,

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as any place would be
after a couple of decades.

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Anyway, we'll see. We'll see what we get.

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I'm trying to imagine the next few days
and get my focus right,

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going back into a rehearsal kind of
frame of mind,

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to see where everybody's at.

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Thinking about Ray.

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I haven't seen Ray now since 1991.

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Oh, man, Ray!

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Isaac, I haven't seen even longer.

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- Jsaacl.
- Hey, it's nice to see you.

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Barney,
I haven't seen in a really long time.

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Oh, my God! It's Barney's father!

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Hey!

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We had an intense period of time together

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and then we separated
and went our separate ways

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so we're always attached by Graceland.

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To the great Barney Rachabane!

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And now, with this reunion,
we'll finally get the chance to talk about

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how we made the record and going on tour.

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That'll be interesting to me.

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Because it's the same event,
but everybody's story is different.

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Paul Simon is going to be giving,
listen to this, this is exciting,

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an exclusive and intimate performance
this Thursday evening in Johannesburg.

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Paul would like to invite a few
select listeners to attend the event.

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That could be you.

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I think all of us, we are like,

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"Oh, boy, this performance, man,"

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"we have to get back onto Graceland and
just do it one more time 25 years later."

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Here I was,
living in South Africa, and then,

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here comes a particular individual
called Paul Simon.

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For me, music is
the closest thing to religion.

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And if it's utilized in the right way,

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it can inform and bring people closer

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and they can
find solutions to their problems.

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And Graceland did that.

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I've been doing music professionally
since I'm 15 years old.

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And in many ways, Graceland was the most
significant achievement of my career.

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I really think that the next generation still
has a pretty deep connection to Graceland.

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For a lot of people my age,

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it was really evocative of being
on road trips with their family

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when they were five or six years old.

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And for us, we have specific songs

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where I think you can totally make
the Graceland connection.

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My perspective is that what Paul Simon
was doing had a beauty to it.

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I think he had a great idea,
a creative idea,

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to mix his music and his rhythms
and his ingenuity

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with some that he had
found in South Africa.

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But, at that moment in time,

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it was not helpful.

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There was this inconvenient thing
called apartheid.

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It got in the way.

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Apartheid was a system made
to divide the people of South Africa

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on the basis of color of skin.

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The white South Africans were dominating
everything, under protection by law.

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And the whole apartheid system
intentionally, deliberately

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set out to prove that black people were
the most inferior beings on Earth.

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And people of South Africa
did not take this lying down.

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We fought.

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We were fighting for our land,
for our identity.

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We had a job to do,
and it was a serious job,

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and we saw Paul Simon come in as a threat
and we saw it as an issue.

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Because it was not sanctioned,
as we saw it, by the liberation movement,

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and this situation
was not about Paul Simon,

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it was about the liberation
of the people of South Africa.

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The criticism and the attacks on the album
and on me was very hurtful.

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And I don't really know
what the internal debate was here.

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I mean, I know what the result was,

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but I don't know who said what and why.

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From the South African side of things,
there's a lot that I don't know, a lot.

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So I was just thinking to myself,
it's a bit surreal what's going on here

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because the first time I saw you,
it was on an album cover.

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We didn't meet but we had that relationship

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- over the cultural boycott.
- Right.

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And here you are, 25 years later.

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I know you are a brilliant artist,
I've respected you all my life,

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I know that you had no mal-intent in going,

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and I do think it's regrettable
that with the brilliance of what you did,

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with these musicians,

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there was this conflagration around it
on a political level.

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Well, this misunderstanding
is really unfortunate,

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and it's been on my mind for all this time.

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So, I'll tell you my story,

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- then you tell me your story.
- Sure.

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- Then we'll see what happened.
- Yeah.

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I was given a cassette.

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It was called Accordion Jive Hits
by the Boyoyo Boys.

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I used to play this tape all the time,

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and after about three weeks of it I said,

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"You know, this is my favorite music."

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"I am not interested in
listening to anything else."

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I found out that it came from South Africa,
so I asked my record label,

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"Do we know anybody in South Africa?"

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They said, "Yeah, there's this producer
Hilton Rosentha|."

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I had the call from Paul Simon
and he said that

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one of the cuts on side two, I think,
was called Gumboots,

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and could I do some research.

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I asked Paul at that time
what he wanted to do with the song.

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He said he had written some lyrics.

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And he wasn't sure what he was going to do
but that he just wanted to record the song.

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Paul put the cassette in, played this
thing, and he sang, and I said to him,

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"You can just do that here in New York.
Just get a couple of great players."

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"You've got the instrumentation.
The players can certainly do that."

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He looked at me like, "What?"

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And he said,
"No, no, no, no. I'm going down there."

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I really wanted to do that music.

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But I was very aware of what was going on,
politically, in South Africa.

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So I call up Harry Belafonte,
who I've known for many, many years.

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When I spoke to Paul, I said,

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"I think it's great that you're going,

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"and I think you should
just let the ANC know,

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"|et Oliver Tambo and the leadership know.

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"The ANC, the African National Congress,
was the voice of black South Africans."

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"I can introduce you
to the powers that prevail"

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"to let them know what you're doing
so that you can have"

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"all of the necessary passes on it."

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And I saw right then and there
that Paul resisted the idea.

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Paul, as I recall, declared that the
power of art and the voice of the artist

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was supreme and that to go to one group
or another,

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for whatever reason,
to beg the rite of passage

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was against his instinct.

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It was an adventure
that seemed irresistible to me.

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And, of course, I was fascinated

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and intimidated by the fact
that I'm coming to South Africa.

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And I didn't tell Harry, you know?

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Which I probably should have done.

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Except it's like your dad.

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You know, when your dad says,
"Don't take the car,"

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but you really have a date
that you really want to go on,

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you just decide you're gonna
take the car anyway.

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So, I came with my engineer,

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and I was immediately struck
by the extreme racial tension.

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And coming from a country
that was racially tense,

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I was absolutely unprepared
for what it felt like in the air.

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The law of the land was apartheid.

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Mandela was still in jail.

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De Klerk was the president.

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I was uncomfortable.

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But we got into the studio

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and began to record with
this group called Tau Ea Matsekha.

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It was very exciting to
see these South African groups come in.

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I was already familiar with their records.

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There was this accordion player
named Forere.

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He didn't know who I was.
He didn't speak English.

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But our interaction was really interesting

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because you give him a signal
and you say, "Go,"

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and he just starts playing.

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And then everybody
would fall in behind him.

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He was playing a melody on the accordion
and I wanted him to play,

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and we got a really great sound.

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It was kind of all over the place and
needed to be edited and changed around.

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When we started jamming
in the studio with Paul,

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I didn't know him.

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I saw this guy with cowboy boots,
you know?

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And I was asking myself,
"What is this guy trying to do?"

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Because he was trying to fuse pop music
plus African music.

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The first clay, the feeling in the room
was a little strained.

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That's what I sensed. They're very shy.
You know, "Am I doing the right thing?"

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And it was really something
to see them change.

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During the course of the session,
all of a sudden,

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were a bunch a musicians in this room
having fun.

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Bakithi played the fretless bass,

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and when he plays a groove,
the guy lights up, you know.

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He just lights up. He's incredible.

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And his intonation
and his articulation was phenomenal.

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I was just working as a mechanic,
and then one day

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I got this call from the boss

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and he said, "Hey, Paul Simon is in town,
and he's looking for some musicians,"

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and I said, "Paul Simon?
Who is Paul Simon?"

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I mean, I had no idea.

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And the guy tried to explain to me,
he's singing all the songs, you know,

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like the songs from Simon and Garfunkel
and I'm like,

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"It doesn't ring a bell."

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And then I take my bass
and I go to the studio.

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And so I meet Paul and Roy Halee,
the engineer, and they're like,

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"Hey, man. Let's play some grooves."

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Every groove we play, Paul just loved it.

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And then he would stop and change it,
but we didn't know why...

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I mean, the groove is so good,
why was he changing?

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But he needed another part
that we didn't know.

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Then he'll break and then
give us different chords,

234
00:16:39,374 --> 00:16:41,877
and then we'd learn different things.

235
00:16:42,752 --> 00:16:44,546
It was like going back to music school.

236
00:16:46,882 --> 00:16:51,595
The initial recording sessions in
Johannesburg were planned pretty quietly.

237
00:16:51,803 --> 00:16:55,807
I contacted the representatives of
the groups that Paul wanted to work with

238
00:16:55,891 --> 00:16:58,268
including producer Koloi Lebona.

239
00:16:59,311 --> 00:17:03,773
Hilton said,
"Could you organize the musicians"

240
00:17:03,857 --> 00:17:06,985
"that would play on the session?"

241
00:17:07,277 --> 00:17:12,574
So, I brought Bakithi Kumalo,
I brought Vusi Khumalo as a drummer,

242
00:17:12,657 --> 00:17:16,745
and I brought Forere
who plays piano accordion.

243
00:17:18,955 --> 00:17:22,292
What attracted me
was the way Forere combines

244
00:17:22,375 --> 00:17:25,962
what his left hand and his right hand
is playing on the accordion.

245
00:17:26,046 --> 00:17:31,218
And I think that's exactly what drew
Paul Simon to be entranced with this music.

246
00:17:43,605 --> 00:17:48,360
We are at the house of the piano
accordion player Forere Motloheloa.

247
00:17:49,319 --> 00:17:53,156
We've come here to fetch him
for this Graceland reunion project.

248
00:17:54,991 --> 00:17:56,743
This was the original melody

249
00:17:56,826 --> 00:18:00,080
that Paul Simon turned into
The Boy In The Bubble, yeah?

250
00:18:00,163 --> 00:18:04,000
And what he says here
is he's paying tribute to

251
00:18:04,084 --> 00:18:07,629
a beautiful woman that he has found
and that he's happy with.

252
00:18:12,259 --> 00:18:16,680
He says the solitude of the place
combined with the landscape

253
00:18:16,763 --> 00:18:20,308
gives him so much time
to think of beautiful things

254
00:18:20,392 --> 00:18:22,936
that he then translates into the music.

255
00:18:25,188 --> 00:18:29,609
When Forere came to me,
he was working in the mines.

256
00:18:29,693 --> 00:18:32,237
The money paid in the mines was a pittance.

257
00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:34,948
But it was better than sitting around here
and doing nothing.

258
00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:37,117
And he started realizing that,

259
00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:40,161
"Well, surely there must be
other means of earning a living"

260
00:18:40,245 --> 00:18:42,789
"than just slaving away in the mines."

261
00:18:42,872 --> 00:18:47,627
And that's how he learned
to perfect his accordion skills.

262
00:18:51,131 --> 00:18:54,926
The way he plays a piano accordion,
it's the voicing.

263
00:18:55,593 --> 00:19:00,890
How he's adapting it
to suit the traditional Basuto melodies.

264
00:19:00,974 --> 00:19:04,019
And that's what led to
the birth of The Boy In The Bubble.

265
00:19:19,701 --> 00:19:22,912
Do you think it would be interesting to
hear him sing his song?

266
00:19:22,996 --> 00:19:25,165
We will see if
we can combine the two songs.

267
00:19:25,248 --> 00:19:30,295
So he begins verse four,
I answer verse four,

268
00:19:30,378 --> 00:19:31,921
he comes back, verse four.

269
00:19:33,715 --> 00:19:35,425
After that we go to the chorus.

270
00:19:35,550 --> 00:19:39,929
Again, he sings again,
and I sing against him.

271
00:19:41,806 --> 00:19:44,893
This is the way it happened.
This is what happened in the studio.

272
00:19:44,976 --> 00:19:46,811
You know,
somebody would play and I'd say,

273
00:19:46,895 --> 00:19:49,564
"That's good, let's do that.
Let's go here and let's go there."

274
00:19:49,647 --> 00:19:51,107
"Then let's do this. No, no."

275
00:19:51,191 --> 00:19:53,360
"Then, Bakithi, you play here.
Then we'll try that."

276
00:19:53,443 --> 00:19:55,779
"Let's try it again.
Let's do it this way and this way."

277
00:19:55,862 --> 00:20:00,825
Trial and error. So, we'll try it now.
We'll see how many errors we make.

278
00:20:26,768 --> 00:20:30,397
When Paul Simon was in South Africa
in 1985,

279
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:32,816
it was at a moment of high struggle.

280
00:20:33,108 --> 00:20:35,985
The apartheid regime
were at their most vicious.

281
00:20:38,655 --> 00:20:39,656
It was very scary,

282
00:20:40,156 --> 00:20:42,283
I was just a kid growing up there,

283
00:20:42,367 --> 00:20:45,286
but I just had no idea
why there was so much problem.

284
00:20:45,370 --> 00:20:46,413
And people are running,

285
00:20:46,496 --> 00:20:49,416
the cops come in the middle of the night,
start counting people.

286
00:20:49,499 --> 00:20:52,252
There was a point sometime
I couldn't eat for two days

287
00:20:52,335 --> 00:20:53,837
because there was no food.

288
00:20:54,170 --> 00:20:57,108
And my parents, they didn't know where
they were gonna get the food the next day.

289
00:20:57,132 --> 00:20:58,412
So you just gotta hang in there.

290
00:20:59,717 --> 00:21:02,345
Because the apartheid regime
were at their most vicious,

291
00:21:02,429 --> 00:21:06,850
we had to ensure that by all means
necessary they are isolated.

292
00:21:07,475 --> 00:21:09,811
The General Assembly of the United Nations

293
00:21:10,103 --> 00:21:15,150
called for economic sanctions,
oil embargo, sports boycott,

294
00:21:15,358 --> 00:21:17,193
and cultural boycott of South Africa.

295
00:21:17,360 --> 00:21:19,571
Part of the cultural boycott

296
00:21:19,654 --> 00:21:24,993
was to call on all people who are engaged
in cultural activities

297
00:21:25,076 --> 00:21:27,120
not to cooperate with South Africa.

298
00:21:27,203 --> 00:21:28,663
What were the ANC's hope

299
00:21:28,746 --> 00:21:31,040
that artists of other nations
might do to help?

300
00:21:31,207 --> 00:21:34,878
I think firstly, we'd like them to obey
the cultural boycott of South Africa

301
00:21:34,961 --> 00:21:36,045
to the letter.

302
00:21:36,963 --> 00:21:39,549
We had been saying to artists
all over the world,

303
00:21:40,049 --> 00:21:42,969
"At this point in the
history of South Africa,"

304
00:21:43,052 --> 00:21:48,892
"the expression of your support
must be non-participatory."

305
00:21:50,393 --> 00:21:51,394
"You can't go there."

306
00:21:51,603 --> 00:21:55,899
The way in which you interact
with other peoples is on a free basis,

307
00:21:55,982 --> 00:21:57,150
between free people.

308
00:21:58,943 --> 00:22:02,197
I remember talking about the issue
of Paul Simon,

309
00:22:02,614 --> 00:22:05,283
that I did not think that it was correct
for him to come.

310
00:22:12,582 --> 00:22:16,127
When I brought musicians
to the Graceland session,

311
00:22:16,336 --> 00:22:20,673
I was patently aware at the time
that there was a cultural boycott.

312
00:22:21,382 --> 00:22:22,509
It was risky,

313
00:22:22,675 --> 00:22:26,638
but our music is always regarded
as third world music.

314
00:22:27,305 --> 00:22:32,769
And I thought, if our music gets a chance
to be part of mainstream music,

315
00:22:33,061 --> 00:22:35,188
surely that can't do any harm.

316
00:22:35,730 --> 00:22:37,774
So when Paul Simon came,

317
00:22:38,274 --> 00:22:44,531
I deliberately withheld
some of the risks involved

318
00:22:44,614 --> 00:22:45,657
in doing this thing.

319
00:22:46,324 --> 00:22:49,786
I thought, "What the heck?
This is a chance in a million."

320
00:22:49,869 --> 00:22:50,995
"We must do this."

321
00:23:01,714 --> 00:23:02,715
Yeah.

322
00:23:03,967 --> 00:23:04,968
That's it.

323
00:23:05,468 --> 00:23:07,220
That's good. That's cool.

324
00:23:07,303 --> 00:23:08,781
- Shall we try I Know What I Know?
- Yeah.

325
00:23:08,805 --> 00:23:11,516
See if we can do it? All right.

326
00:23:11,808 --> 00:23:12,892
Isaac!

327
00:23:13,810 --> 00:23:15,728
- You think you know what you know.
- I know.

328
00:23:18,147 --> 00:23:19,816
Bakithi knows what he knows.

329
00:23:52,181 --> 00:23:56,019
This song was originally recorded
with General Shirinda and the Gaza Sisters.

330
00:23:56,227 --> 00:23:57,228
They're Shangaan.

331
00:23:57,729 --> 00:24:00,523
Shangaan sound was electric guitar-based

332
00:24:00,607 --> 00:24:02,525
with a pop band around it.

333
00:24:02,692 --> 00:24:05,570
And some very strange,
to Western ears anyway,

334
00:24:05,695 --> 00:24:08,573
strange sounds of the female vocalists

335
00:24:08,656 --> 00:24:10,533
doing a wailing sound in the background.

336
00:24:12,994 --> 00:24:15,955
It's different because it's like

337
00:24:16,039 --> 00:24:18,041
you're singing out of tune sometimes.

338
00:24:18,124 --> 00:24:21,044
But that is how it should sound like.
You understand?

339
00:24:33,723 --> 00:24:36,184
When General Shirinda
came into the studio,

340
00:24:36,267 --> 00:24:40,438
they came in with the whole family,
mothers, and their children.

341
00:24:41,606 --> 00:24:42,857
It was like a party.

342
00:24:55,912 --> 00:25:00,208
I was in South Africa for a very
short time, like maybe 10 or 12 days,

343
00:25:00,291 --> 00:25:01,668
recording frantically.

344
00:25:01,751 --> 00:25:04,045
And it was exhilarating.

345
00:25:04,379 --> 00:25:05,463
It was really amazing.

346
00:25:08,591 --> 00:25:12,011
The album that preceded Graceland,
Hearts and Bones,

347
00:25:12,387 --> 00:25:14,639
was a relative commercial failure.

348
00:25:15,556 --> 00:25:19,185
And my reaction to that,
rather than thinking,

349
00:25:19,268 --> 00:25:20,269
"I'm dead,"

350
00:25:20,812 --> 00:25:22,105
my reaction to that was,

351
00:25:22,188 --> 00:25:26,693
"Well, good. The next time I make a record,
nobody will be looking over my shoulder,"

352
00:25:26,776 --> 00:25:30,780
which is what they'd been doing
for years and years.

353
00:25:31,030 --> 00:25:33,116
"What's the hit on this album?
What's it gonna be?"

354
00:25:33,199 --> 00:25:37,870
Because I had an unbroken string of hits
from Simon and Garfunkel,

355
00:25:37,954 --> 00:25:40,456
up until Hearts and Bones.

356
00:25:40,832 --> 00:25:43,209
So that was in my mind
when I went to South Africa,

357
00:25:43,292 --> 00:25:46,129
"Well, I can do whatever I want here.

358
00:25:46,212 --> 00:25:49,298
"And I'm not gonna get calls
from the record company every week saying,

359
00:25:49,382 --> 00:25:52,885
"'How's it going?" Or, "Can you send us
something? We're dying to hear it."'

360
00:25:52,969 --> 00:25:56,931
They just left me alone, and that was good.

361
00:26:04,188 --> 00:26:08,651
With those groups that I knew,
like General Shirinda and the Gaza Sisters,

362
00:26:08,818 --> 00:26:14,282
I really had a clear idea of what I
really liked, and what I wanted to record.

363
00:26:14,490 --> 00:26:17,368
So those songs, where there's co-writing,

364
00:26:17,952 --> 00:26:21,914
that's because they were based
on tracks that I had heard,

365
00:26:21,998 --> 00:26:23,678
and I could point to their record and say,

366
00:26:23,750 --> 00:26:26,586
"Can you play this,
but change it a little bit here?"

367
00:26:26,919 --> 00:26:29,005
And whatever writing was shared,

368
00:26:29,088 --> 00:26:31,883
we would share the credit
and share the royalties.

369
00:26:34,051 --> 00:26:37,764
I thought about writing
political songs about the situation,

370
00:26:37,847 --> 00:26:40,183
but I'm not actually very good at it.

371
00:26:40,933 --> 00:26:42,977
And here's an interesting thing.

372
00:26:43,186 --> 00:26:47,774
When I recorded with General Shirinda
a song that became I Know What I Know,

373
00:26:47,857 --> 00:26:50,443
I asked him, "What's that song about?"

374
00:26:51,527 --> 00:26:54,030
And he said, "You know, it's about..."

375
00:26:54,363 --> 00:27:00,203
"Remember the '60s when girls wore
really short skirts? Wasn't that great?"

376
00:27:02,121 --> 00:27:03,664
He said, "That's what it was about."

377
00:27:04,582 --> 00:27:09,587
So I said, "You know,
they're not making up political music."

378
00:27:10,630 --> 00:27:11,964
"They're making up pop music."

379
00:27:13,216 --> 00:27:14,467
These songs are pop music.

380
00:27:25,728 --> 00:27:27,980
What was the other verse
about the chicken and...

381
00:27:28,397 --> 00:27:31,150
The other one, it says...

382
00:27:35,071 --> 00:27:38,074
It means, "Slaughter an owl"

383
00:27:39,534 --> 00:27:40,654
"because there's no chicken,"

384
00:27:40,993 --> 00:27:43,579
"and you cut the head and throw it away."

385
00:27:44,539 --> 00:27:47,500
"The body will look like a chicken,
so don't worry."

386
00:27:47,583 --> 00:27:49,001
"We Will eat that in the train."

387
00:27:50,503 --> 00:27:52,964
We'll eat it on the train.
It'll look like a chicken.

388
00:27:53,256 --> 00:27:56,551
Cut off the head of the owl,
it'll look like a chicken.

389
00:27:56,759 --> 00:27:59,762
And nobody will know.
We'll eat it on the train.

390
00:27:59,846 --> 00:28:00,847
Yeah.

391
00:28:01,097 --> 00:28:02,265
That's what it meant.

392
00:28:04,851 --> 00:28:10,940
So I realized that instead of writing a
song like Biko, the Peter Gabriel song,

393
00:28:11,065 --> 00:28:12,942
which I love, in fact I recorded it,

394
00:28:13,276 --> 00:28:15,945
and is a great example of a political song.

395
00:28:16,362 --> 00:28:20,575
My idea was, "They play their best.
I'm gonna play my best."

396
00:28:21,117 --> 00:28:22,702
"I'm gonna give it my best shot."

397
00:28:22,785 --> 00:28:25,538
I didn't come in here
promising to do anything

398
00:28:25,621 --> 00:28:27,456
other than to make a really great record.

399
00:28:27,790 --> 00:28:30,293
They didn't say, "Come in here
and tell our story."

400
00:28:30,376 --> 00:28:33,713
They just said, "Yeah, you can come in.
We'll play with you."

401
00:28:44,140 --> 00:28:48,811
Biko was a more overt political song
than the work of Graceland.

402
00:28:49,103 --> 00:28:52,398
But Graceland introduced
millions of people around the world

403
00:28:52,982 --> 00:28:57,653
to what was wonderful
in South African music.

404
00:28:57,820 --> 00:29:01,032
And made people feel good, want to dance.

405
00:29:02,158 --> 00:29:04,410
There were so many positives in Africa.

406
00:29:04,827 --> 00:29:11,167
And yet most of us still have the image
of a child in drought, surrounded by flies,

407
00:29:11,250 --> 00:29:14,795
or Africa, the basket case that needs help.

408
00:29:18,674 --> 00:29:22,970
Graceland helped people around the world
think that there was a lot more to Africa

409
00:29:23,054 --> 00:29:24,347
than suffering.

410
00:29:37,485 --> 00:29:39,779
Once we got to the second week
of recording,

411
00:29:39,862 --> 00:29:43,199
the nucleus of the band was
Ray Phiri on guitar,

412
00:29:43,282 --> 00:29:46,285
Bakithi Kumalo on bass,
and Isaac Mtshali on drums.

413
00:29:51,123 --> 00:29:53,960
And Paul would go in and they would chat

414
00:29:54,043 --> 00:29:55,878
and start playing around and grooving,

415
00:29:55,962 --> 00:29:57,522
and then when Paul heard
something he liked,

416
00:29:57,546 --> 00:29:59,426
he'd say,
"Let's try that and build around it."

417
00:30:00,257 --> 00:30:04,178
He said to us, "Feel free, play anything."

418
00:30:05,304 --> 00:30:09,642
We started jamming, playing anything,
like we're practicing.

419
00:30:11,185 --> 00:30:14,397
Only to find that the tape is rolling,
you know.

420
00:30:14,647 --> 00:30:18,109
And then they are sitting that side,
they keep on peeking,

421
00:30:18,401 --> 00:30:19,485
"Okay, stop now."

422
00:30:19,944 --> 00:30:20,987
"Okay, now run."

423
00:30:21,237 --> 00:30:22,238
"Okay, now stop."

424
00:30:22,780 --> 00:30:27,118
Just do the answer to this bass voice,
instead of playing solo throughout it.

425
00:30:27,243 --> 00:30:28,411
So it's...

426
00:30:32,623 --> 00:30:33,624
Here comes the bass.

427
00:30:36,210 --> 00:30:41,048
We were just playing around
our African thing,

428
00:30:41,424 --> 00:30:46,679
only to find that Paul,
he's hearing things his way.

429
00:30:47,930 --> 00:30:50,766
At the end of the day
when we listened to the whole thing,

430
00:30:51,684 --> 00:30:54,729
we didn't believe it's us doing that.

431
00:30:54,812 --> 00:30:57,940
Because we're not thinking of, like,

432
00:30:58,566 --> 00:30:59,775
"Are we recording or what?"

433
00:31:01,485 --> 00:31:02,778
The sessions were great.

434
00:31:03,654 --> 00:31:06,741
But the racial tension in South Africa
was at such a level

435
00:31:06,824 --> 00:31:09,702
that it was palpable even in the studio.

436
00:31:10,953 --> 00:31:13,205
Here's a kind of an example
of what it was like.

437
00:31:13,456 --> 00:31:15,416
The Boyoyo Boys came into the studio.

438
00:31:15,499 --> 00:31:18,586
And I said, "Play this."
And they couldn't play it.

439
00:31:18,669 --> 00:31:22,965
And when they came back the next clay,
they still couldn't play it.

440
00:31:23,466 --> 00:31:24,759
And I'm really frustrated.

441
00:31:24,842 --> 00:31:26,469
"Why is it terrible?"

442
00:31:27,053 --> 00:31:31,766
And one of the white engineers,
or assistant engineers, said,

443
00:31:32,266 --> 00:31:34,435
"Well, now you see
what we're talking about here?"

444
00:31:34,518 --> 00:31:36,353
"This is what we're talking about."

445
00:31:36,937 --> 00:31:39,774
"I mean, they can't do it."

446
00:31:40,816 --> 00:31:42,696
"They tell you they can,
but they can't do it."

447
00:31:43,486 --> 00:31:44,612
It was a racist comment.

448
00:31:45,321 --> 00:31:48,115
Did it bother me? It stunned me.

449
00:31:48,908 --> 00:31:52,119
You know? I didn't know.

450
00:31:55,623 --> 00:31:59,960
The epiphany comes from the next day
when Ray Phiri comes in.

451
00:32:00,961 --> 00:32:02,755
Ray Phiri comes in with his band,

452
00:32:02,838 --> 00:32:07,760
which was probably the top band
in South Africa, it was called Stimela.

453
00:32:08,344 --> 00:32:10,179
And the drummer was Isaac Mtshali.

454
00:32:10,679 --> 00:32:14,100
So they came in, and he was playing,
and I was playing with him,

455
00:32:14,183 --> 00:32:16,352
and I said, "Well, that's good.
Why don't we do that?"

456
00:32:16,435 --> 00:32:17,621
And he said, "Yeah, I can do that."

457
00:32:17,645 --> 00:32:22,691
And then I overdub
another part on top of it.

458
00:32:23,150 --> 00:32:25,361
And I'm still thinking
about the Boyoyo Boys.

459
00:32:25,444 --> 00:32:29,365
So I say, "Yeah, yeah, just get that
and I'll be happy."

460
00:32:31,075 --> 00:32:34,203
So he does, he gets it.

461
00:32:34,537 --> 00:32:36,056
And I think, "Well, that's pretty good."

462
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:37,957
He says, "Let me do the overdub now."

463
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:41,460
So I say, "Yeah, okay, go ahead,
try it, overdub."

464
00:32:41,877 --> 00:32:43,754
And it's great.

465
00:32:44,338 --> 00:32:47,716
And suddenly I realize the guy's brilliant.

466
00:32:48,968 --> 00:32:52,304
I was ready to buy into the racist thing.

467
00:32:52,388 --> 00:32:56,767
They fed it to me.
They give it to you, you know.

468
00:32:57,893 --> 00:33:03,149
So you get a big South African lesson.

469
00:33:05,526 --> 00:33:07,653
We were all just
meeting for the first time.

470
00:33:08,070 --> 00:33:11,532
They didn't know my political beliefs,
and I didn't know theirs.

471
00:33:12,199 --> 00:33:14,910
And I knew that Stimela
was a number one group.

472
00:33:15,244 --> 00:33:17,746
But I didn't know that they were known
as a group

473
00:33:17,830 --> 00:33:20,708
that was provocative to the police.

474
00:33:21,876 --> 00:33:26,005
Sometimes at the gig,
the police are waiting for us.

475
00:33:26,463 --> 00:33:28,591
They say, "Where are those Stimelas?"

476
00:33:29,758 --> 00:33:31,802
"We want those Stimelas. Where are they?"

477
00:33:34,930 --> 00:33:38,893
They come with tear gas.
And they put tear gas all over the place.

478
00:33:38,976 --> 00:33:40,311
People are like this.

479
00:33:42,605 --> 00:33:43,856
I'm not afraid.

480
00:33:43,939 --> 00:33:48,861
If I have to die, and I die on stage,
I'll be the happiest.

481
00:33:48,944 --> 00:33:51,822
But if I have to die on the street
when somebody does that,

482
00:33:51,906 --> 00:33:53,490
that would be cowardly.

483
00:33:55,117 --> 00:33:58,120
As a musician,
I could see that things are bad.

484
00:33:58,329 --> 00:34:02,875
But we keep on singing the song.

485
00:34:05,502 --> 00:34:07,713
One day, Ray started playing the riff...

486
00:34:18,140 --> 00:34:19,975
After we recorded the backing track,

487
00:34:20,100 --> 00:34:22,937
next morning I picked Paul up
on the way to the studio.

488
00:34:23,145 --> 00:34:26,607
And said to him,
"I have a feeling that yesterday"

489
00:34:26,690 --> 00:34:29,276
"at least one of the hits from this album
was recorded."

490
00:35:02,643 --> 00:35:05,479
So we began to know each other.

491
00:35:05,562 --> 00:35:07,106
And the recording process,

492
00:35:07,690 --> 00:35:13,696
which was still completely separated
from any political implications,

493
00:35:14,196 --> 00:35:15,197
as far as I knew,

494
00:35:16,198 --> 00:35:20,369
was getting more and more fascinating.

495
00:35:20,828 --> 00:35:25,040
We were really learning
how to combine different musical ideas.

496
00:35:26,458 --> 00:35:28,919
Okay, let me tell you my story.

497
00:35:29,211 --> 00:35:30,212
Go ahead.

498
00:35:31,714 --> 00:35:36,552
I had been in exile for a while
and went to live in England.

499
00:35:37,511 --> 00:35:40,806
These people were hunting my father,
Oliver Tambo, as a terrorist.

500
00:35:41,307 --> 00:35:45,144
As the president of the ANC,
he was an icon of human rights.

501
00:35:45,227 --> 00:35:48,272
And I grew up
surrounded by revolutionaries.

502
00:35:48,689 --> 00:35:51,608
Our home was a hub for all exiles.

503
00:35:51,942 --> 00:35:53,819
So I met a lot of people in that time

504
00:35:53,944 --> 00:35:57,823
who showed me that this was
actually a united struggle.

505
00:35:57,906 --> 00:36:02,536
And we formed Artists Against Apartheid
to enforce this cultural boycott

506
00:36:03,078 --> 00:36:06,582
because we genuinely felt
that if you go there,

507
00:36:07,041 --> 00:36:13,630
you become part of apartheid's attempt
to gain international legitimacy

508
00:36:13,797 --> 00:36:18,135
and pull itself out of the sanctions
that was gripping the country.

509
00:36:18,552 --> 00:36:24,058
And so when you came to South Africa, it
wasn't the ideal form of cultural exchange.

510
00:36:24,558 --> 00:36:26,268
They weren't free people, Paul.

511
00:36:26,518 --> 00:36:29,938
Then why did they say, "Come"?

512
00:36:30,939 --> 00:36:36,445
Do you think they were all selfish, that
they did it for three times union scale?

513
00:36:36,612 --> 00:36:39,114
Yeah, I think if you went
anywhere in the world and you said,

514
00:36:39,198 --> 00:36:40,991
"Paul Simon wants to perform with you,"

515
00:36:41,325 --> 00:36:43,660
people would pretty much say,
"Yes, I'll do that."

516
00:36:43,827 --> 00:36:46,288
Yes, but I treated them as equals.

517
00:36:46,663 --> 00:36:48,248
They treated me as equals.

518
00:36:48,624 --> 00:36:50,918
We treated each other as musicians.

519
00:36:51,377 --> 00:36:55,964
We didn't have anything to do
with color, race.

520
00:36:56,048 --> 00:36:58,050
It was purely music.

521
00:36:58,133 --> 00:37:00,552
And it wasn't lost on any of them,

522
00:37:00,636 --> 00:37:04,932
because here I come back 25 years later,
and those people are my dear friends.

523
00:37:05,641 --> 00:37:08,435
Joseph, my brother.

524
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:09,561
Where is my hug?

525
00:37:10,354 --> 00:37:11,772
You come back with it.

526
00:37:13,732 --> 00:37:18,487
It is very special to work with Paul Simon
because many, many years

527
00:37:20,656 --> 00:37:24,159
it was very difficult to work together
with a white person.

528
00:37:25,285 --> 00:37:27,913
But when we started to work
with Paul Simon,

529
00:37:27,996 --> 00:37:29,498
we didn't see a difference.

530
00:37:29,706 --> 00:37:32,292
We didn't see that he's white, I'm black.

531
00:37:32,543 --> 00:37:34,211
I just... He's my brother.

532
00:37:34,670 --> 00:37:36,171
- You good?
- You do it again.

533
00:37:36,505 --> 00:37:40,175
- Do it again? I'll do it forever.
- Yeah.

534
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:44,388
- So glad to see you, my friend.
- Thank you so much.

535
00:37:44,471 --> 00:37:47,182
Joseph Shabalala,
from Ladysmith Black Mambazo,

536
00:37:47,266 --> 00:37:48,350
came into the studio.

537
00:37:48,642 --> 00:37:51,770
And that's the group that I knew
from a British documentary

538
00:37:51,854 --> 00:37:53,272
called The Rhythm of Resistance.

539
00:37:53,981 --> 00:37:57,776
In townships outside the white cities,
music happens everywhere.

540
00:37:57,860 --> 00:38:01,947
The Ladysmith Black Mambazo are a group
who found exceptional commercial success.

541
00:38:02,030 --> 00:38:05,200
They draw on the Zulu tradition
of the male vocal group

542
00:38:05,284 --> 00:38:08,036
to create a unique blend
of African and Western harmonies.

543
00:38:13,542 --> 00:38:18,797
The sound of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, it's
a sound of everything that surrounds us,

544
00:38:18,881 --> 00:38:20,883
because we grew up in the farm.

545
00:38:20,966 --> 00:38:25,304
Birds singing, wind blowing, frogs singing,

546
00:38:26,555 --> 00:38:28,390
and some small insect.

547
00:38:28,474 --> 00:38:31,268
So the music is there all the time.

548
00:38:33,812 --> 00:38:38,567
When I got the call, I just ran to my guys.

549
00:38:38,692 --> 00:38:40,903
"Hey, I talked to somebody."

550
00:38:41,945 --> 00:38:43,530
"His name is Paul Simon."

551
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:46,408
"He wants to see me."

552
00:38:46,492 --> 00:38:50,454
I was proud of that. "He wants to see me.
He wants to talk to me."

553
00:38:51,788 --> 00:38:54,291
And the guy said, "Go there, go there.
Don't make a mistake."

554
00:38:54,374 --> 00:38:56,960
"Please go there and
come back and tell us."

555
00:38:59,087 --> 00:39:02,216
Joseph Shabalala
was very quiet in the studio.

556
00:39:02,758 --> 00:39:05,093
He was just kind of mysterious and quiet.

557
00:39:06,011 --> 00:39:09,264
So I didn't know
whether he liked what I was doing,

558
00:39:09,348 --> 00:39:11,266
or whether he liked me.

559
00:39:13,060 --> 00:39:17,981
And he gave me like 10 or 12 albums
which I used to listen to every night.

560
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:20,442
I used to listen to them on...

561
00:39:20,609 --> 00:39:22,903
I would fall asleep listening to them.

562
00:39:23,820 --> 00:39:26,406
And I just totally became,

563
00:39:31,787 --> 00:39:35,541
just bewitched
by Ladysmith Black Mambazo

564
00:39:36,875 --> 00:39:38,752
because they were so beautiful.

565
00:39:43,674 --> 00:39:45,259
The music was enchanting.

566
00:39:45,342 --> 00:39:49,513
It was all a cappella.
I'd never heard it really, never heard it.

567
00:39:50,472 --> 00:39:55,102
And I thought it was so beautiful
that I was totally intimidated.

568
00:39:55,519 --> 00:39:59,856
They were so good at what they did,
and it was so contained,

569
00:40:00,190 --> 00:40:02,526
that I didn't really know at the time

570
00:40:02,609 --> 00:40:08,824
how I could possibly fit into their world,

571
00:40:08,907 --> 00:40:12,452
and didn't know whether they wanted me
to fit into their world.

572
00:40:12,869 --> 00:40:14,580
And I couldn't bring myself to ask him

573
00:40:14,663 --> 00:40:18,542
if he would bring the group in
and try to record something in the studio.

574
00:40:21,837 --> 00:40:24,339
Paul was so polite.

575
00:40:24,881 --> 00:40:27,843
Paul has a special magic.
Nobody has that magic.

576
00:40:28,510 --> 00:40:30,679
He just came to me like a baby,

577
00:40:31,388 --> 00:40:33,265
like, "Father",

578
00:40:35,183 --> 00:40:36,343
"can you teach me something?"

579
00:40:43,984 --> 00:40:46,820
And we hugged.
That was my first time to hug,

580
00:40:47,529 --> 00:40:49,364
especially a white man.

581
00:40:49,823 --> 00:40:53,452
When I finished that,
I said, "I'm in jail HOW."

582
00:40:54,369 --> 00:40:57,331
And Paul Simon was talking,
and I forgot about that. "Oh, yes."

583
00:40:57,414 --> 00:41:02,878
"And Joseph,
Paul Simon from New York City."

584
00:41:04,921 --> 00:41:09,051
"| just listened to your record.
I think you can do something together."

585
00:41:10,052 --> 00:41:13,388
I'm a person who is just like
when you talk about music to me,

586
00:41:13,889 --> 00:41:14,890
let's do it now.

587
00:41:15,432 --> 00:41:17,559
And I say, "Yes, Paul, let's do it."

588
00:41:17,768 --> 00:41:21,438
And he said, "A|| right, Joseph.
I'll let you know where, when."

589
00:41:22,981 --> 00:41:25,233
So we decided that I would write a song,

590
00:41:25,692 --> 00:41:28,654
and we would record
outside of South Africa.

591
00:41:28,737 --> 00:41:31,073
I didn't wanna go back to South Africa.

592
00:41:31,990 --> 00:41:32,991
I wasn't comfortable.

593
00:41:34,242 --> 00:41:35,702
I wanted to get out of there.

594
00:41:41,458 --> 00:41:45,295
We took it back to New York,
and that's when the work really started.

595
00:41:45,379 --> 00:41:49,758
Putting it all together,
it was a heck of an undertaking.

596
00:41:55,597 --> 00:41:56,682
Roy's a genius.

597
00:41:56,848 --> 00:41:59,518
I think what Roy had to do after the fact

598
00:41:59,601 --> 00:42:02,229
was incredibly difficult
and time-consuming.

599
00:42:02,312 --> 00:42:05,607
In this day and age, with Pro Tools,

600
00:42:05,691 --> 00:42:07,984
it wouldn't have been that difficult.

601
00:42:09,111 --> 00:42:11,238
That didn't exist,
and he had stuff he had to do.

602
00:42:12,447 --> 00:42:14,533
The challenge on this album

603
00:42:14,616 --> 00:42:17,244
was there were no songs,
there was no arrangement.

604
00:42:18,704 --> 00:42:22,290
So the challenge was editing, editing,
editing, and lots of editing.

605
00:42:22,374 --> 00:42:25,293
Taking things from here,
putting them there,

606
00:42:25,377 --> 00:42:28,088
take that out, put it over here,
and recopying things.

607
00:42:29,256 --> 00:42:32,384
If you heard what the
tracks were originally

608
00:42:32,467 --> 00:42:34,928
without his magic, and his echo,

609
00:42:35,011 --> 00:42:38,432
and his devices that he used,

610
00:42:38,682 --> 00:42:41,435
it wouldn't sound so huge
and so mysterious.

611
00:42:47,649 --> 00:42:49,484
So we finished all our editing.

612
00:42:49,568 --> 00:42:53,405
We made tracks that had
some semblance of a song there.

613
00:42:53,655 --> 00:42:58,827
And he went on and tried desperately
to put words to each one.

614
00:42:59,870 --> 00:43:00,954
And he did.

615
00:43:01,204 --> 00:43:03,498
And he slaved at it. It was awfully hard

616
00:43:03,582 --> 00:43:06,334
because there's so much going on
in those tracks.

617
00:43:06,418 --> 00:43:07,711
They're very busy tracks.

618
00:43:16,303 --> 00:43:19,055
Paul came back from Africa

619
00:43:19,347 --> 00:43:22,142
and we met on holiday that year.

620
00:43:22,225 --> 00:43:25,187
We were in the same place
in the summer, on Long Island.

621
00:43:25,812 --> 00:43:28,273
I've known him for a
little while as a friend.

622
00:43:28,356 --> 00:43:30,734
And he talked about this music.

623
00:43:30,984 --> 00:43:33,862
And I said,
"Have you got it? Let's hear it."

624
00:43:34,154 --> 00:43:36,823
So we went out to the car
and he played it on the car stereo.

625
00:43:37,199 --> 00:43:41,411
And I said, "What are you gonna do with it?
What do you do? You got songs?"

626
00:43:41,495 --> 00:43:43,095
He said, "Well, I'm gonna make them up."

627
00:43:44,039 --> 00:43:46,500
When I was writing back at home,

628
00:43:46,875 --> 00:43:48,627
I would write a verse, it would be fine.

629
00:43:48,710 --> 00:43:50,354
And then I'd write another verse,
it wouldn't be fine.

630
00:43:50,378 --> 00:43:52,255
Then I'd write a verse, it would be fine.

631
00:43:52,714 --> 00:43:55,359
I'd say, "Yeah, it's all good,
except for that verse. I don't know."

632
00:43:55,383 --> 00:43:57,023
"I don't know why that verse isn't good."

633
00:43:57,761 --> 00:44:00,514
"It should be. It seems like
it's exactly the same as the others."

634
00:44:00,889 --> 00:44:05,185
"And I'm doing the lyrics
in the same rhythm. I really don't get it."

635
00:44:05,727 --> 00:44:10,232
I was really frustrated by not being able
to get the lyrics to fit.

636
00:44:10,315 --> 00:44:14,027
And then I'd say, "Okay,
let me really listen to what's going on."

637
00:44:14,319 --> 00:44:16,988
And when I started to really listen,

638
00:44:17,072 --> 00:44:21,993
then I realized that the guitar part
was playing a different symmetry

639
00:44:22,077 --> 00:44:25,413
than I had assumed it was playing.

640
00:44:25,789 --> 00:44:29,417
And the bass was doing something
that was much more important.

641
00:44:29,626 --> 00:44:35,090
And that you really might be better off
following what the bass was doing.

642
00:44:42,138 --> 00:44:45,767
So I began to think about that,
and the rhythm, and what that meant.

643
00:44:45,851 --> 00:44:47,853
And what effect that would have
on the lyrics.

644
00:44:47,936 --> 00:44:50,856
And what effect that would have
on storytelling.

645
00:44:51,439 --> 00:44:54,943
And I began to raise the bar
for my own writing.

646
00:45:21,636 --> 00:45:25,181
Paul to me is almost like a painter
and a screenwriter,

647
00:45:25,265 --> 00:45:26,266
the way he writes songs.

648
00:45:29,394 --> 00:45:32,022
Because he makes me see things
when he writes.

649
00:45:32,272 --> 00:45:34,357
He gets really inside of his music,

650
00:45:34,441 --> 00:45:36,484
and takes you there with colors,

651
00:45:36,568 --> 00:45:39,863
whether it be pennywhistle
or whatever, you know, African choirs.

652
00:45:41,489 --> 00:45:43,116
He's got that curious mind.

653
00:45:46,328 --> 00:45:50,040
So I ended up writing abstract, or ironic,

654
00:45:50,123 --> 00:45:53,043
but in either case,
sort of sophisticated lyrics

655
00:45:53,126 --> 00:45:55,962
to what were sophisticated rhythms.

656
00:46:16,107 --> 00:46:21,112
So you get a song like Graceland,
where in the middle of the song, it's,

657
00:46:21,196 --> 00:46:25,241
"There's a girl in New York City
who calls herself the human trampoline."

658
00:46:30,830 --> 00:46:35,669
A lyric that would never appear
in a South African song.

659
00:46:36,378 --> 00:46:38,546
I mean, it was a very New York lyric.

660
00:46:38,630 --> 00:46:43,176
I mean, I wrote it while I was walking
past the Museum of Natural History.

661
00:46:48,515 --> 00:46:51,184
And I kept singing this chorus,

662
00:46:51,267 --> 00:46:53,120
"I'm going to Graceland.
I'm going to Graceland."

663
00:46:53,144 --> 00:46:55,563
And I kept thinking,
"Well, of course, that'll go away"

664
00:46:57,440 --> 00:46:59,818
"because the song is not about
Elvis Presley or Graceland."

665
00:46:59,901 --> 00:47:01,736
I mean, it's a South African record.

666
00:47:02,821 --> 00:47:04,572
But it wouldn't go away.

667
00:47:05,115 --> 00:47:08,576
And finally I said, "You know, it's not
going away. I better go to Graceland."

668
00:47:09,452 --> 00:47:10,453
I had never been.

669
00:47:11,079 --> 00:47:12,664
I better make that trip and see what...

670
00:47:12,747 --> 00:47:15,917
Maybe there's something about this
that I'm supposed to find out.

671
00:47:16,084 --> 00:47:17,502
And had I not made that trip,

672
00:47:17,585 --> 00:47:21,506
I wouldn't have been able to have written
thelandscape,

673
00:47:21,589 --> 00:47:25,010
that is the first verse,
about the Mississippi delta.

674
00:47:25,093 --> 00:47:27,012
"Shining like a National guitar."

675
00:47:38,189 --> 00:47:40,775
And so the song took on a bigger meaning.

676
00:47:43,903 --> 00:47:47,615
It was a metaphor for a state of grace.

677
00:47:48,241 --> 00:47:50,368
I was taking absurdist lyrics,

678
00:47:50,452 --> 00:47:54,622
which I thought had no place
with this rhythm track.

679
00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:57,959
And finally saying,
"Well, maybe it does have a place."

680
00:47:59,419 --> 00:48:02,672
"Sometimes when I'm falling, flying,
tumbling in turmoil..."

681
00:48:03,798 --> 00:48:06,801
This was something else that I was doing,
was a lot of syllables.

682
00:48:11,014 --> 00:48:14,726
"This is what she means.
She means we're bouncing into Graceland."

683
00:48:15,060 --> 00:48:16,936
Which was also something
that I hadn't done,

684
00:48:17,020 --> 00:48:19,731
which was taking the chorus word

685
00:48:20,732 --> 00:48:22,275
and putting it into the verse.

686
00:48:22,650 --> 00:48:27,697
Usually the chorus has its own
repetitive phrase, or word,

687
00:48:27,822 --> 00:48:29,741
and you don't hear that word in the verse.

688
00:48:30,158 --> 00:48:32,744
But now I was saying,
"Well, there's no reason to separate."

689
00:48:32,827 --> 00:48:35,246
"They can bleed back and forth."

690
00:48:35,330 --> 00:48:41,002
And that's the beginning of saying, actually,
these patterns that have felt restrictive

691
00:48:41,377 --> 00:48:42,378
are not...

692
00:48:43,922 --> 00:48:45,673
They needn't be there.

693
00:48:54,849 --> 00:48:58,061
I remember he would invite me over
to hear what he was doing.

694
00:48:58,144 --> 00:49:01,064
We did that a lot in
those days. We still do.

695
00:49:01,356 --> 00:49:03,501
He would have the backing tracks
and play those for me,

696
00:49:03,525 --> 00:49:05,360
and then he would just sing the words.

697
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:09,239
And at some point I said, "Paul",

698
00:49:10,532 --> 00:49:12,412
"this is gonna be
a really, really good record."

699
00:49:25,130 --> 00:49:26,131
That's very good, guys.

700
00:49:26,881 --> 00:49:31,886
That was the great gift that I received
from making the trip to South Africa,

701
00:49:34,055 --> 00:49:36,891
and collaborating with African musicians.

702
00:49:39,060 --> 00:49:44,816
I think a lot of musicians all over the world
are drawn to African music in particular

703
00:49:44,899 --> 00:49:50,822
because almost all the pop music
in the world is African, in a certain way.

704
00:49:51,739 --> 00:49:55,285
It came in through the slaves,
and through Cuban music,

705
00:49:55,368 --> 00:49:57,912
and through New Orleans
and all these places

706
00:49:57,996 --> 00:49:59,372
and it kind of seeped in

707
00:49:59,455 --> 00:50:03,001
and it became, really,
part of American music,

708
00:50:03,084 --> 00:50:05,128
and part of international pop music.

709
00:50:06,754 --> 00:50:10,383
In Graceland, you can hear
the whole phenomena of American music

710
00:50:10,550 --> 00:50:12,927
being rejoined with its African roots.

711
00:50:17,891 --> 00:50:20,101
It wasn't until I got home
that I started to think,

712
00:50:20,185 --> 00:50:22,770
"I could write a song
for Ladysmith Black Mambazo."

713
00:50:22,937 --> 00:50:28,484
And so I wrote Homeless, imitating them,
and sent the demo to them

714
00:50:28,651 --> 00:50:29,652
and said,

715
00:50:30,111 --> 00:50:33,531
"You can use this or you can change it."

716
00:50:33,615 --> 00:50:37,410
"And add to it if you want
or change it completely if you want."

717
00:50:37,493 --> 00:50:38,653
"Do anything you want to it."

718
00:50:45,919 --> 00:50:48,671
After two weeks, we saw the cassette

719
00:50:48,755 --> 00:50:51,633
came in the post office from Paul Simon.

720
00:50:51,799 --> 00:50:53,718
And then we put the cassette to play.

721
00:50:53,968 --> 00:50:57,847
So he was playing a piano
and singing only two lines.

722
00:50:58,306 --> 00:51:01,392
"Homeless, homeless.
Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake."

723
00:51:09,692 --> 00:51:12,195
And then he was doing
some other noise like...

724
00:51:13,279 --> 00:51:16,991
And then we thought,
"Maybe he was trying to say..."

725
00:51:17,909 --> 00:51:19,494
And then do all those things.

726
00:51:19,619 --> 00:51:21,096
They wrote back and said,
yeah, they liked it

727
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:22,664
and they had some ideas.

728
00:51:23,873 --> 00:51:28,086
And we decided to go
to Abbey Road Studios in London.

729
00:51:28,586 --> 00:51:30,046
- London?
- First class.

730
00:51:30,129 --> 00:51:31,756
London!

731
00:51:42,517 --> 00:51:44,769
In London, we were taken to the studio,

732
00:51:44,852 --> 00:51:48,189
and then that was the first time for us,
as a group, to meet Paul Simon.

733
00:51:50,024 --> 00:51:54,696
Wow! This is wonderful! It felt so good!
And so exciting.

734
00:51:54,779 --> 00:51:57,573
So the microphones were set there.
And then we get there.

735
00:51:58,283 --> 00:52:00,034
We started to sing the song.

736
00:52:03,413 --> 00:52:06,749
But the song didn't want to work
the first day.

737
00:52:07,834 --> 00:52:11,421
Our producer here at home, West Nkosi,
was there trying to help.

738
00:52:11,504 --> 00:52:14,841
He said, "No guys, man.
Just sing it like this. Paul wants this."

739
00:52:18,344 --> 00:52:20,722
And so many people are trying to help.

740
00:52:20,805 --> 00:52:24,392
We tried the song from 2:00
until 6:00 in the evening.

741
00:52:30,231 --> 00:52:33,192
And then the song
didn't want to work at all.

742
00:52:33,359 --> 00:52:37,905
And Paul Simon said, "Okay, let's call it
a day and then we'll see tomorrow."

743
00:52:38,489 --> 00:52:41,284
We went back to our hotel
very disappointed.

744
00:52:41,409 --> 00:52:46,748
Because usually, Ladysmith Black
Mambazo, we record 12 songs a day.

745
00:52:47,123 --> 00:52:50,418
But this time, only one song,
we couldn't make it.

746
00:52:50,501 --> 00:52:54,339
We were so disappointed.
And then when we get in the hotel,

747
00:52:54,422 --> 00:52:58,176
we had dinner,
and then we got together, we pray.

748
00:52:59,052 --> 00:53:02,472
Our prayer was very, you know,
deep that day.

749
00:53:02,555 --> 00:53:08,353
I remember that I was so concerned
that, "No, I've never failed in anything."

750
00:53:08,436 --> 00:53:10,605
"So this is no time to fail now."

751
00:53:11,147 --> 00:53:14,233
And then, so, we practice the song
until 12:00 midnight.

752
00:53:14,442 --> 00:53:16,110
And then the song was together.

753
00:53:17,153 --> 00:53:19,989
- I should come over here.
- Maybe!

754
00:53:20,448 --> 00:53:22,241
The next day when we went to the studio

755
00:53:22,325 --> 00:53:25,578
and Joseph just walk up to Paul Simon
and said,

756
00:53:26,162 --> 00:53:28,122
"We have been practicing."

757
00:53:28,331 --> 00:53:31,459
"So we want you to listen,
what we have been practice."

758
00:53:36,798 --> 00:53:38,966
We just look one another, "Okay, guys."

759
00:53:42,553 --> 00:53:44,597
Just like I'm angry.

760
00:53:49,102 --> 00:53:50,937
And then Paul...

761
00:53:54,732 --> 00:53:56,359
I nearly faint.

762
00:53:57,026 --> 00:53:59,612
I thought he's going
to wait until we finish.

763
00:53:59,695 --> 00:54:02,240
And he gets there in the right position.

764
00:54:31,144 --> 00:54:34,021
I think it took two takes.
They had it so perfectly.

765
00:54:34,272 --> 00:54:38,317
The beginning of the song
is a folk song or traditional song.

766
00:54:38,568 --> 00:54:40,736
I said, "What does it mean?"

767
00:54:40,820 --> 00:54:42,780
And then they said,
"We're far away from home,"

768
00:54:42,864 --> 00:54:46,159
"and we're sleeping and our fists
are our pillows."

769
00:54:46,284 --> 00:54:47,869
I said, "That's beautiful."

770
00:54:58,045 --> 00:55:00,548
In two hours, the song was finished.

771
00:55:00,965 --> 00:55:04,343
We were so excited and so satisfied.

772
00:55:04,427 --> 00:55:07,763
And we said... "This is it. Wonderful!"

773
00:55:23,404 --> 00:55:25,865
I enjoyed to work with Paul Simon.

774
00:55:25,948 --> 00:55:31,954
It was just like he's my younger brother
or elder brother, "Who is this guy?"

775
00:55:32,079 --> 00:55:35,791
"He was hiding himself in America?
This is my brother."

776
00:55:35,875 --> 00:55:39,921
I call him brother every day.
Brother because of music.

777
00:55:40,004 --> 00:55:43,424
Music is something like prayer.

778
00:55:55,645 --> 00:55:59,357
Then we decided that we would get
Ray Phiri and Bakithi

779
00:55:59,565 --> 00:56:02,902
and Isaac and form a kind of a studio band.

780
00:56:02,985 --> 00:56:04,320
And I invited them

781
00:56:04,403 --> 00:56:08,074
and Ladysmith to come to New York
to finish the album.

782
00:56:08,157 --> 00:56:10,910
And everybody was getting really excited.

783
00:56:16,123 --> 00:56:18,751
First of all, they got off the plane.
They were met by a limo.

784
00:56:18,834 --> 00:56:23,089
You know, and a white driver.
And they drove into Manhattan.

785
00:56:23,673 --> 00:56:26,133
I used to see a limo in the movie.

786
00:56:26,300 --> 00:56:30,221
And, I mean, in South Africa,
I don't remember seeing any limo anywhere.

787
00:56:30,304 --> 00:56:32,223
I mean, do you understand what I'm saying?

788
00:56:32,306 --> 00:56:35,893
And it was a cool thing to be in the limo

789
00:56:35,977 --> 00:56:39,146
and you're served whiskey
and that kind of thing.

790
00:56:39,272 --> 00:56:41,148
You know, you're being treated
like a musician.

791
00:56:43,150 --> 00:56:45,486
My dream was just to come to New York.

792
00:56:45,820 --> 00:56:48,823
Because, as a kid, looking at the records,

793
00:56:48,906 --> 00:56:54,161
and listening to the records
that were recorded in New York,

794
00:56:54,537 --> 00:56:57,999
I just wanted to go there
and be one of those guys.

795
00:56:58,332 --> 00:57:00,501
And it happened.

796
00:57:02,545 --> 00:57:05,047
I remember, it was Bakithi or Isaac said,

797
00:57:05,131 --> 00:57:08,175
"We want to go to Central Park.
Where do we go to get a permit?"

798
00:57:08,718 --> 00:57:12,013
And I said,
"You don't need a permit. You just go."

799
00:57:12,388 --> 00:57:14,056
"You can go anywhere you want."

800
00:57:14,682 --> 00:57:17,852
Those guys were coming
from an imprisoned society

801
00:57:18,060 --> 00:57:19,770
into freedom for the first time.

802
00:57:20,396 --> 00:57:21,981
It was very touching.

803
00:57:22,523 --> 00:57:25,276
They were free. Free.

804
00:57:33,743 --> 00:57:38,205
The record was supposed
to come out in the spring of '86.

805
00:57:38,331 --> 00:57:41,459
And we were booked to do
"Saturday Night Live."

806
00:57:41,542 --> 00:57:44,462
And Warner Bros. Decided to postpone
the record till the fall,

807
00:57:44,545 --> 00:57:46,881
but we were booked
for "Saturday Night Live."

808
00:57:47,548 --> 00:57:50,676
So I said, "While we're all here,
we might as well try and do another track."

809
00:57:50,843 --> 00:57:54,096
So we did what became
Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes.

810
00:57:54,639 --> 00:57:56,390
They were doing the song.

811
00:57:56,557 --> 00:58:01,187
And then they stopped, and Paul Simon said
to Mr. Shabalala,

812
00:58:01,395 --> 00:58:03,147
"Can you play this song?"

813
00:58:03,230 --> 00:58:06,984
"I'm just doing this song,
Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes."

814
00:58:07,234 --> 00:58:12,406
And then, so Joseph just took
a piece of paper and then the pen,

815
00:58:12,490 --> 00:58:16,786
and then he wrote it down, only few words.

816
00:58:16,911 --> 00:58:18,704
What were the words?

817
00:58:45,314 --> 00:58:46,941
Zulu lyrics, means...

818
00:58:50,444 --> 00:58:52,154
"It's not usually..."

819
00:58:54,615 --> 00:58:56,784
"But in our days..."

820
00:58:59,078 --> 00:59:01,288
"We see those things happen."

821
00:59:03,124 --> 00:59:06,210
"The women,
they can take care of themselves."

822
00:59:13,300 --> 00:59:14,385
We decided to put.

823
00:59:14,468 --> 00:59:17,304
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
at the end of the track.

824
00:59:17,555 --> 00:59:19,890
And they had never sung
with musicians before.

825
00:59:19,974 --> 00:59:22,643
They always sang a cappella.

826
00:59:24,311 --> 00:59:27,398
We were there, maybe,
not even two hours' time.

827
00:59:27,648 --> 00:59:31,026
And then, Paul Simon said, "You're at
the end." He said, "Let's do this..."

828
00:59:32,987 --> 00:59:35,906
Yeah, and everybody
was having a good time.

829
00:59:42,663 --> 00:59:46,876
After that, we went to do
"Saturday Night Live."

830
00:59:47,626 --> 00:59:50,254
And everybody was very nervous about that,

831
00:59:50,337 --> 00:59:53,758
they said, "That audience there,
they are very mean."

832
00:59:54,008 --> 00:59:56,969
We didn't care because
we believe what we have is that,

833
00:59:57,052 --> 01:00:00,890
"If we sing for you, if you like it,
you like it, if you don't, you don't."

834
01:00:01,932 --> 01:00:03,768
And we went on the show,

835
01:00:03,851 --> 01:00:06,395
and we sang these songs
that weren't out on a record yet.

836
01:00:06,562 --> 01:00:08,373
Do you think people are going to like this
when you do it?

837
01:00:08,397 --> 01:00:12,026
I'm not sure.
That's why I have this expression.

838
01:00:12,526 --> 01:00:14,046
If it doesn't work, we'll just cut it.

839
01:00:16,989 --> 01:00:21,118
Ladies and gentlemen, Paul Simon
with Ladysmith and Black Mambazo.

840
01:01:03,786 --> 01:01:07,498
And then we sing the song.
We perform it with confidence.

841
01:01:45,077 --> 01:01:47,121
Everyone was kind of in awe.

842
01:01:47,204 --> 01:01:49,748
It wasn't like anything
that was on the show before.

843
01:01:49,832 --> 01:01:52,001
And you felt it in the studio.

844
01:01:52,084 --> 01:01:55,337
You knew what was happening
in the country, and it was just...

845
01:02:01,510 --> 01:02:05,931
The cheering and the sound in the studio
from the audience,

846
01:02:06,265 --> 01:02:09,977
it was so loud that I kind of lost my place
in one of the things.

847
01:02:10,102 --> 01:02:12,980
It was really surprising.
'Cause nobody had ever heard it before.

848
01:02:25,284 --> 01:02:29,496
Them being on the show
was a revolution in taste.

849
01:02:29,705 --> 01:02:33,125
It was the synthesis of two cultures.

850
01:02:33,208 --> 01:02:37,796
And the obvious affection that they had
for Paul and that Paul had for them

851
01:02:37,963 --> 01:02:40,299
was the perfect moment.

852
01:02:43,844 --> 01:02:46,764
When we finished the song,
everybody stood up.

853
01:02:47,181 --> 01:02:51,894
They clapped and then they even stomped,
whistling and all those things.

854
01:02:52,519 --> 01:02:55,981
And everybody was very happy for that.

855
01:02:58,025 --> 01:03:02,529
Ladysmith Black Mambazo became
the hippest act on the planet.

856
01:03:02,655 --> 01:03:05,532
And everybody wanted
Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

857
01:03:06,033 --> 01:03:08,744
They became international stars
and remain so.

858
01:03:11,413 --> 01:03:15,751
So, almost two years after I first went to
South Africa, the record finally came out.

859
01:03:21,423 --> 01:03:23,467
It was met with immediate praise.

860
01:03:23,717 --> 01:03:26,470
There is so much despair
coming out of South Africa,

861
01:03:26,553 --> 01:03:29,014
so many haunting images
of death and oppression.

862
01:03:29,556 --> 01:03:33,227
Sometimes hard to remember that
life there does go on, in all of its forms.

863
01:03:33,394 --> 01:03:36,146
The celebration of the black life
of South Africa

864
01:03:36,230 --> 01:03:37,815
can be heard in this country

865
01:03:37,898 --> 01:03:40,067
in a remarkable album called Graceland.

866
01:03:40,234 --> 01:03:45,030
Rather than diluting one of the most vital,
pop-music subcultures in the world,

867
01:03:45,114 --> 01:03:48,075
that of black South Africa,
he transforms it.

868
01:03:48,367 --> 01:03:51,412
He works a real synthesis.
That's very hard to do.

869
01:03:53,956 --> 01:03:56,875
All artists who have long careers
periodically hit dead ends.

870
01:03:57,001 --> 01:04:00,504
And if you're gonna keep a career going,
you have to keep being a kid again.

871
01:04:00,587 --> 01:04:05,175
And that's in a way what he did
with Graceland was to be a kid again.

872
01:04:05,259 --> 01:04:08,220
To be back at three chords,
to be bouncing around,

873
01:04:08,303 --> 01:04:11,640
to be making joyous danceable music.

874
01:04:14,977 --> 01:04:17,938
It's my favorite album of all time.

875
01:04:18,564 --> 01:04:20,804
Second favorite, Stevie Wonder,
Songs In The Key Of Life.

876
01:04:21,483 --> 01:04:27,031
There was all of this music
that had so much vibrancy

877
01:04:27,114 --> 01:04:31,535
and life and excitement and rhythm
and everything.

878
01:04:31,618 --> 01:04:36,290
It just sort of opened up
a space inside of you.

879
01:04:37,958 --> 01:04:44,465
For myself, my deep
and now abiding interest in South Africa

880
01:04:44,631 --> 01:04:47,718
was stirred by first
listening to Graceland.

881
01:04:48,886 --> 01:04:52,473
Simon's work Graceland recently won
a Grammy for Album of the Year.

882
01:04:55,976 --> 01:05:00,814
I think Graceland came at the right moment.

883
01:05:01,815 --> 01:05:04,902
It was the perfect storm, you know.

884
01:05:05,778 --> 01:05:07,863
The words are amazing, you know?

885
01:05:07,946 --> 01:05:10,824
The Boy in the Bubble
and the baby with the baboon heart.

886
01:05:10,908 --> 01:05:13,744
Come on, now. That's great, you know.

887
01:05:13,827 --> 01:05:16,830
The rhythms are great, the music is great,
the lyrics are great.

888
01:05:17,206 --> 01:05:21,210
It just has a great sound
that the instruments,

889
01:05:21,668 --> 01:05:26,465
the instrumentals that he is using,
you know, that thing that goes...

890
01:05:29,676 --> 01:05:32,513
I mean, come on, man. It's classic.

891
01:05:34,848 --> 01:05:40,187
But somewhere around three weeks after
it came out, the first criticism came.

892
01:05:42,731 --> 01:05:45,818
Which I was completely unprepared for.

893
01:05:46,193 --> 01:05:48,028
And the criticism was,

894
01:05:49,196 --> 01:05:51,698
"You broke the UN cultural boycott."

895
01:05:52,533 --> 01:05:55,410
Paul Simon has run into political problems
in South Africa.

896
01:05:55,494 --> 01:06:00,082
The African National Congress protested
Simon's recording in South Africa,

897
01:06:00,207 --> 01:06:03,168
a violation, they said,
of the UN's cultural boycott.

898
01:06:04,711 --> 01:06:06,797
The album had the controversy around it.

899
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:09,842
It was very vexed going to South Africa
at that time.

900
01:06:09,925 --> 01:06:13,345
And you got the feeling that Paul Simon
had gone in there on a stealth mission

901
01:06:13,428 --> 01:06:16,390
and collaborated with the South Africans.

902
01:06:16,473 --> 01:06:19,810
I mean, he was collaborating, it
turned out, with the right South Africans.

903
01:06:19,893 --> 01:06:22,688
But the whole project seemed a little odd.

904
01:06:23,397 --> 01:06:26,733
A lot of the press picked it up in
the United States,

905
01:06:26,817 --> 01:06:29,778
Rolling Stone amongst them,
and kind of saw an opportunity

906
01:06:29,862 --> 01:06:33,907
to beat up on a famous guy
who, like, maybe made a mistake.

907
01:06:34,825 --> 01:06:36,910
And so they were all,

908
01:06:36,994 --> 01:06:41,999
"Paul Simon didn't ask permission
from the UN"

909
01:06:42,082 --> 01:06:45,169
"and is on the blacklist from the UN."

910
01:06:46,461 --> 01:06:50,465
The intensity of the criticism,
really did surprise me.

911
01:06:50,549 --> 01:06:53,343
And part of the criticism was,

912
01:06:53,927 --> 01:06:58,849
"Here's this white guy from New York,
and he came in and he ripped off"

913
01:06:58,932 --> 01:07:01,560
"these poor innocent guys."

914
01:07:01,894 --> 01:07:05,147
There is an aspect in this album
that bothered me initially.

915
01:07:05,314 --> 01:07:07,191
You have this rich white guy

916
01:07:07,274 --> 01:07:10,777
singing on top
of these South African singles.

917
01:07:11,236 --> 01:07:14,114
To demonstrate how his work melded
with that of the South Africans,

918
01:07:14,198 --> 01:07:16,617
he first played the track
of a popular local band.

919
01:07:18,452 --> 01:07:21,872
And then, the same tune
after it had been Simonized.

920
01:07:22,539 --> 01:07:25,042
To me, at the time it seemed
kind of like the tourist picture,

921
01:07:25,125 --> 01:07:27,794
"Here's me in front of the Taj Mahal
in my T-shirt, waving."

922
01:07:27,961 --> 01:07:31,298
And that bothered me at that time.
At this point it doesn't.

923
01:07:31,465 --> 01:07:35,802
I think he was right.
And he was ahead of me.

924
01:07:36,136 --> 01:07:40,224
He was saying, "We can make this amalgam
work. We can make this combination work."

925
01:07:40,599 --> 01:07:44,228
And, I think a lot of people at that time
had this knee-jerk reaction

926
01:07:45,020 --> 01:07:48,732
of rich privileged white guy,
poor country, must be bad.

927
01:07:49,149 --> 01:07:53,320
How can you justify going there,
taking all this music from this country?

928
01:07:53,487 --> 01:07:55,155
It's nothing but stealing.

929
01:07:56,156 --> 01:07:57,491
It ain't nothing but stealing.

930
01:07:58,033 --> 01:08:00,285
How can you just go and tell me,
"| went there..."

931
01:08:00,369 --> 01:08:01,912
Graceland is a collaboration.

932
01:08:02,079 --> 01:08:06,792
You don't believe that it's possible
to have a collaboration?

933
01:08:07,209 --> 01:08:09,795
It's always an interesting debate,
you know.

934
01:08:09,878 --> 01:08:12,089
It's happened all the way through history,

935
01:08:12,172 --> 01:08:13,674
particularly through black history.

936
01:08:14,091 --> 01:08:17,344
Do you believe that collaboration
is possible between musicians?

937
01:08:17,594 --> 01:08:20,264
- Between you and them, no.
- Why?

938
01:08:20,347 --> 01:08:21,390
You don't understand.

939
01:08:21,473 --> 01:08:23,850
Why, because I'm white
and they are South African?

940
01:08:24,393 --> 01:08:28,730
With the Beatles,
we actually recycled American black music

941
01:08:29,398 --> 01:08:30,649
to Americans.

942
01:08:30,857 --> 01:08:33,443
We came over and we were really doing

943
01:08:34,945 --> 01:08:36,697
a lot of Motown.

944
01:08:37,197 --> 01:08:40,450
But a lot of white kids
hadn't heard Motown.

945
01:08:40,784 --> 01:08:43,120
You don't understand the music at all.

946
01:08:43,453 --> 01:08:49,042
Well, you are saying something that they,
these musicians, in fact, disagree with.

947
01:08:49,710 --> 01:08:54,840
I accepted Paul's music
and what he'd done the minute it came out.

948
01:08:55,215 --> 01:08:56,883
I had no resistance to that.

949
01:08:58,302 --> 01:09:02,556
I am a fan of his and I like very much,
so much, that he has done.

950
01:09:02,723 --> 01:09:04,558
And to have that album in particular,

951
01:09:04,641 --> 01:09:08,186
which was filled
with moments of great genius

952
01:09:08,270 --> 01:09:09,521
and delight.

953
01:09:09,771 --> 01:09:13,817
A lot of that welcoming, however,
was under the understanding,

954
01:09:13,900 --> 01:09:18,905
or at least the belief,
that he would square what he was doing

955
01:09:19,656 --> 01:09:24,661
with the powers who led the resistance
to apartheid, which was the ANC.

956
01:09:25,495 --> 01:09:28,623
It never dawned on me that
that was not the case.

957
01:09:28,707 --> 01:09:31,418
And I did not know that
that was not the case until Paul called

958
01:09:31,585 --> 01:09:33,795
and we met in my home.

959
01:09:34,588 --> 01:09:36,465
And he explained to me

960
01:09:36,548 --> 01:09:41,303
that he had this crisis,
or this obstacle before him.

961
01:09:42,471 --> 01:09:45,724
Harry said, "You should talk to the ANC."

962
01:09:45,932 --> 01:09:47,976
So when I met with the ANC,

963
01:09:48,060 --> 01:09:51,897
I said, "Hey, I have no fight with the ANC,
we have no fight with the ANC."

964
01:09:52,230 --> 01:09:56,443
"We support the ANC.
We'd be willing to do concerts for you."

965
01:09:56,943 --> 01:09:59,529
And they said, "Look, here's the problem."

966
01:09:59,613 --> 01:10:01,782
"You went to South Africa,
but you didn't ask us."

967
01:10:04,242 --> 01:10:08,955
"And the way we're structured is"

968
01:10:09,122 --> 01:10:13,460
"you have to ask the ANC
if you're gonna do anything."

969
01:10:15,420 --> 01:10:19,216
So I said, "Really? Is that the kind
of government you're going to be?"

970
01:10:20,217 --> 01:10:24,679
"So does that mean we have to show you
what kind of lyrics we're going to write?

971
01:10:25,138 --> 01:10:27,891
"Or if the musicians' union decides to vote
this way

972
01:10:27,974 --> 01:10:31,812
"and you don't like the way they vote,
then you'll change it around?"

973
01:10:31,978 --> 01:10:34,815
"I mean, that's just the government
that just..."

974
01:10:35,816 --> 01:10:38,610
"You're going to fuck the artist
like all kinds of governments."

975
01:10:39,611 --> 01:10:41,488
"What are we talking about here?"

976
01:10:42,447 --> 01:10:43,907
What was their response?

977
01:10:44,074 --> 01:10:47,077
The guy's response was,
"Hey, personally, I agree with you."

978
01:10:47,160 --> 01:10:48,662
"But that's what policy is."

979
01:10:49,871 --> 01:10:53,583
When you have a boycott, it's not flexible.

980
01:10:53,667 --> 01:10:55,627
And for many people, that was the issue.

981
01:10:55,752 --> 01:11:00,507
"Is Paul Simon bursting the gates
of the cultural boycott open?"

982
01:11:00,757 --> 01:11:03,844
Say no to apartheid! Say yes to freedom!

983
01:11:03,927 --> 01:11:07,347
We were part of this international
sanctions campaign,

984
01:11:07,597 --> 01:11:11,268
which was cultural and sports
and business and military,

985
01:11:11,351 --> 01:11:13,353
and in all of those areas.

986
01:11:13,520 --> 01:11:17,732
It wasn't about,
"Well, we have a military embargo."

987
01:11:18,525 --> 01:11:22,821
"But this American tank,
that one can go through."

988
01:11:24,197 --> 01:11:27,826
It was complete,
and it was complete for a reason.

989
01:11:28,535 --> 01:11:31,705
Because you can't ask of everyone
what you don't ask of one.

990
01:11:33,498 --> 01:11:36,209
Hugh is here! Here comes Hugh now.

991
01:11:36,293 --> 01:11:38,879
Hi, Hugh. How are you doing?

992
01:11:39,004 --> 01:11:40,213
I'm doing good, man.

993
01:11:40,297 --> 01:11:45,177
Hugh Masekela is one of the great
South African musicians.

994
01:11:45,302 --> 01:11:49,764
He's an international star
and he was a political exile.

995
01:11:49,890 --> 01:11:53,935
Hugh connected up with me in London
and we began to talk about touring.

996
01:11:54,102 --> 01:11:56,938
And I don't think
that I could have done it without him.

997
01:11:57,230 --> 01:11:59,524
B flat, so that's one...

998
01:12:03,195 --> 01:12:06,072
Paul had just come from South Africa.

999
01:12:07,073 --> 01:12:08,833
And he said, "Listen,
I just did this thing"

1000
01:12:09,034 --> 01:12:13,330
"and I'd really like to take it
all over the world. Are you interested?"

1001
01:12:13,413 --> 01:12:14,581
I said, "Of course."

1002
01:12:22,756 --> 01:12:24,633
And I said to Paul, "lt'd be good",

1003
01:12:24,716 --> 01:12:31,139
"then to pull in like a Miriam Makeba,"
because I was anticipating the troubles also.

1004
01:12:31,473 --> 01:12:33,475
And here now is Miriam Makeba.

1005
01:12:38,647 --> 01:12:44,110
Miriam Makeba became the most visible
African artist in the 1960s

1006
01:12:44,236 --> 01:12:46,947
when nobody had heard of artists
from South Africa.

1007
01:12:47,030 --> 01:12:49,407
She was the first artist to really
break out hard.

1008
01:12:49,491 --> 01:12:52,953
And she was the first person
to conscientize not only the world,

1009
01:12:53,036 --> 01:12:56,456
but America, especially,
about what was happening in South Africa.

1010
01:12:56,665 --> 01:12:59,793
Would you not resist
if you were allowed no rights

1011
01:12:59,876 --> 01:13:01,002
in your own country?

1012
01:13:01,086 --> 01:13:07,634
We'd been away from home by that time,
me and Miriam, over 25 years in exile.

1013
01:13:08,510 --> 01:13:11,429
So I spoke to Miriam, she's interested.

1014
01:13:11,555 --> 01:13:13,515
And I knew it was going to be great.

1015
01:13:13,640 --> 01:13:16,810
We were going to be like pigs in mud
with all that was gonna happen.

1016
01:14:03,315 --> 01:14:05,817
By the time he did the "Graceland Tour,"

1017
01:14:05,900 --> 01:14:10,322
and then you saw the physical presence
of Africans and whites

1018
01:14:10,405 --> 01:14:15,201
and the melange,
the mixture of races and cultures,

1019
01:14:15,327 --> 01:14:17,621
that was, I think, a supreme moment.

1020
01:14:18,121 --> 01:14:23,209
He wanted to demonstrate that
he wasn't all the things that was inferred

1021
01:14:23,418 --> 01:14:26,212
by the fact that he had broken the boycott.

1022
01:14:26,296 --> 01:14:29,341
So by putting Miriam Makeba
and Ladysmith Black Mambazo,

1023
01:14:29,424 --> 01:14:33,887
and the whole mishpocha, as we say.

1024
01:14:34,804 --> 01:14:41,436
Back then, he did a lot to balance
social conflict or social contradiction.

1025
01:14:42,312 --> 01:14:47,734
And in that context, I think
he declared to the audiences that he faced

1026
01:14:48,151 --> 01:14:50,820
where his deeper self resided.

1027
01:14:53,573 --> 01:14:58,078
"Graceland Tour" was just a godsend.
Really, it was beautiful.

1028
01:14:58,536 --> 01:15:02,624
Just traveling around the world,
seeing all those people.

1029
01:15:04,167 --> 01:15:07,379
In South Africa, we had no opportunity.

1030
01:15:07,462 --> 01:15:09,262
You know, we could only play
in the townships,

1031
01:15:09,339 --> 01:15:12,467
couldn't play in town,
in the beautiful nightclubs.

1032
01:15:12,967 --> 01:15:18,390
You've got dreams but they can
never come true. It really destroys you.

1033
01:15:19,432 --> 01:15:26,356
But Graceland opened my eyes
and set a tone of hope in my life.

1034
01:15:31,111 --> 01:15:34,364
I remember when we were on tour,
and especially in Europe,

1035
01:15:34,447 --> 01:15:36,950
during the winter times,

1036
01:15:37,117 --> 01:15:41,955
every time Black Mambazo
went on that stage and started singing...

1037
01:15:53,007 --> 01:15:56,469
I would feel tears coming, and I'm like,
"Here I am,"

1038
01:15:56,636 --> 01:16:00,140
"I'm an African boy,
I'm in the middle of the snow."

1039
01:16:01,099 --> 01:16:03,059
"And people have come to the show."

1040
01:16:03,143 --> 01:16:06,020
"There are 50,000 people
filled up in the stadium."

1041
01:16:06,229 --> 01:16:11,985
And I would be crying, and I'm like,
"Damn, we are really seeing the world."

1042
01:16:16,156 --> 01:16:19,242
Now, at the time, the boycott stated that.

1043
01:16:19,325 --> 01:16:21,725
South African musicians
could not play anywhere in the world.

1044
01:16:22,912 --> 01:16:25,832
Paul decided that it was a risk
he was prepared to take.

1045
01:16:27,876 --> 01:16:31,504
Touring with Graceland
was actually quite tense at times,

1046
01:16:31,838 --> 01:16:35,341
particularly in Europe.
Before every concert,

1047
01:16:35,508 --> 01:16:39,179
the police would come with bomb-sniffing
dogs and go through the whole theater.

1048
01:16:40,472 --> 01:16:43,099
We had a couple of theaters evacuated

1049
01:16:43,516 --> 01:16:46,102
and shows postponed
because of bomb threats,

1050
01:16:46,186 --> 01:16:48,980
where they said,
"Hey, we think there, you know..."

1051
01:16:49,063 --> 01:16:52,442
"You can't go on at 8:00.
You're going on at 9:15."

1052
01:16:53,276 --> 01:16:56,112
The day he arrived,
a hand grenade was thrown at a building

1053
01:16:56,196 --> 01:16:59,282
housing sound equipment
to be used during the concerts.

1054
01:16:59,365 --> 01:17:02,577
A group calling itself
The Azanian National Liberation Army

1055
01:17:02,660 --> 01:17:05,538
claimed responsibility.
More violence was threatened

1056
01:17:05,622 --> 01:17:08,208
unless Simon called off the tour.

1057
01:17:08,625 --> 01:17:11,336
I remember
when we were in London especially,

1058
01:17:11,628 --> 01:17:14,130
we performed at the Royal Albert Hall.

1059
01:17:14,214 --> 01:17:16,758
I think we were there
for about 10 days or so,

1060
01:17:16,966 --> 01:17:20,261
and of course we had
anti-apartheid movement protesting.

1061
01:17:20,970 --> 01:17:24,808
Outside the Albert Hall, leaflets
critical of the activities of the star

1062
01:17:24,891 --> 01:17:27,227
were presented to his bemused fans.

1063
01:17:27,310 --> 01:17:31,773
And Paul Simon has set a very dangerous
precedent by going to South Africa,

1064
01:17:31,856 --> 01:17:34,317
and we would like him to admit that,
recognize it,

1065
01:17:34,400 --> 01:17:36,694
and come on board
with the cultural boycott.

1066
01:17:38,071 --> 01:17:42,116
I remember Thabo Mbeki, now President.
Thabo Mbeki phoning me from New York,

1067
01:17:42,909 --> 01:17:47,413
and he had met with Harry Belafonte
and some other people,

1068
01:17:47,497 --> 01:17:52,919
and he phoned me and said, "Look, we think
you should, as Artists Against Apartheid",

1069
01:17:53,253 --> 01:17:55,088
"be flexible on this issue."

1070
01:17:55,964 --> 01:17:59,551
And so I went back and we had a meeting,
Artists Against Apartheid,

1071
01:17:59,634 --> 01:18:03,680
and I said, "Look, this is the position.
And we have to take it into account."

1072
01:18:03,763 --> 01:18:06,099
"It's coming from a heavyweight
in our movement."

1073
01:18:06,182 --> 01:18:09,435
And then they said,
"Let's check with ANC London,"

1074
01:18:09,519 --> 01:18:12,438
and ANC London in turn
checked with Lusaka.

1075
01:18:13,022 --> 01:18:17,068
The message came back, "Absolutely not.
You're not going to be flexible."

1076
01:18:17,151 --> 01:18:18,361
"The boycott remains."

1077
01:18:20,905 --> 01:18:25,326
At one point,
somebody called the hotel in London

1078
01:18:25,410 --> 01:18:28,538
and ordered the South Africans
to go back home.

1079
01:18:29,414 --> 01:18:34,294
I was in the room with Ray Phiri. And
Ray said, "Asante, do you believe this?"

1080
01:18:34,627 --> 01:18:36,713
"We face apartheid every day"

1081
01:18:37,046 --> 01:18:40,884
"and you're ordering us to go home.
Are you crazy?"

1082
01:18:41,301 --> 01:18:44,304
I've never seen Ray so angry.

1083
01:18:45,638 --> 01:18:48,850
I remember I got a call
to the hotel in London.

1084
01:18:48,975 --> 01:18:51,936
I've gotta go and see the ANC.
I went to a pub

1085
01:18:52,020 --> 01:18:56,274
and then I met some of the senior members
of the movement

1086
01:18:56,816 --> 01:18:58,985
who wanted to know
what are we doing there.

1087
01:18:59,777 --> 01:19:01,946
And I told them that,
"No, we're here to perform."

1088
01:19:03,323 --> 01:19:04,908
"Perform with whom?"

1089
01:19:04,991 --> 01:19:06,284
"With Paul Simon."

1090
01:19:06,993 --> 01:19:09,787
They told me, "Don't you know
that there's a cultural boycott?"

1091
01:19:09,871 --> 01:19:13,166
And I said, "Okay, tell me
like I'm a seven-year-old. Teach me."

1092
01:19:13,875 --> 01:19:17,211
"What did I do wrong? I don't
understand it. I'm the victim here."

1093
01:19:17,337 --> 01:19:21,883
"| live in South Africa.
How can you victimize the victim twice?"

1094
01:19:23,176 --> 01:19:25,762
Ladies and gentlemen, Hugh Masekela.

1095
01:19:36,230 --> 01:19:40,568
That militant approach
was at the core of the criticism

1096
01:19:40,860 --> 01:19:45,448
that was leveled against me,
and had it not been for Hugh Masekela

1097
01:19:45,531 --> 01:19:49,285
and for Miriam Makeba and Ray Phiri

1098
01:19:49,369 --> 01:19:52,747
and all the South Africans
who were on the tour, who said,

1099
01:19:53,498 --> 01:19:55,500
"Stop. What are you doing?"

1100
01:19:55,583 --> 01:19:57,877
"We wanna be out here.
We wanna show our music."

1101
01:20:22,694 --> 01:20:25,238
There would be press conferences
all the time,

1102
01:20:25,321 --> 01:20:28,658
and the press conferences were like
just people who were just hoping

1103
01:20:28,741 --> 01:20:31,411
that I had made
some kind of ridiculous mistake.

1104
01:20:31,494 --> 01:20:33,454
But when the shit hit the fan,

1105
01:20:33,538 --> 01:20:36,290
Hugh and Miriam, I mean,
they could barely be contained.

1106
01:20:36,374 --> 01:20:40,920
Hugh would say, "What the fuck
did you ever do for South Africa?"

1107
01:20:41,212 --> 01:20:46,634
I mean, there were times
when we really had to, like, hold him back.

1108
01:20:46,718 --> 01:20:49,095
He wanted to... Hugh
wanted to be in a fight.

1109
01:20:49,178 --> 01:20:53,725
So mostly we were trying to explain

1110
01:20:53,808 --> 01:21:00,023
that we were as anti-apartheid as could be,
that Hugh was an exile,

1111
01:21:00,106 --> 01:21:04,318
that Miriam was not allowed to come back
for the burial of her daughter,

1112
01:21:04,402 --> 01:21:07,905
that we were very much against the regime.

1113
01:21:13,536 --> 01:21:17,373
We used to have furious arguments
about the boycott.

1114
01:21:17,457 --> 01:21:22,628
'Cause I said,
"It's great and it's helping South Africa,"

1115
01:21:22,712 --> 01:21:27,383
"but when you start
to, like, also ban South African musicians"

1116
01:21:27,467 --> 01:21:31,804
"who can't make contact with the rest of
the world and they're outstanding artists,"

1117
01:21:31,888 --> 01:21:35,433
"it can be hard on people
who are already suffering in South Africa."

1118
01:21:35,516 --> 01:21:36,934
You can't witch-hunt your people.

1119
01:21:37,018 --> 01:21:39,062
This show is gonna be a smash

1120
01:21:39,145 --> 01:21:42,690
and is gonna play to many people
who've never heard of South Africa.

1121
01:21:49,197 --> 01:21:52,366
When I was in exile in Botswana,
I had thought

1122
01:21:53,451 --> 01:21:56,829
of joining the ANC.

1123
01:21:57,497 --> 01:21:59,624
But over the years, I've learned that

1124
01:21:59,707 --> 01:22:03,336
if an artist or anybody
has really something to say

1125
01:22:03,544 --> 01:22:06,506
about their concerns
for the wellbeing of people,

1126
01:22:06,881 --> 01:22:10,676
then they're in the wrong place
if they join a political party

1127
01:22:10,760 --> 01:22:14,180
because they have to, like,
then follow the strict rules of the party.

1128
01:22:14,764 --> 01:22:18,810
And I've never been
able to live under rules.

1129
01:22:22,188 --> 01:22:26,651
When we went to Zimbabwe,
Paul wanted to give South Africans a chance

1130
01:22:26,859 --> 01:22:31,531
to witness what we have been
giving the people in Europe,

1131
01:22:31,614 --> 01:22:35,952
in America, all over the world.
So he chose to do it in Zimbabwe.

1132
01:22:36,369 --> 01:22:41,707
And a lot of South Africans came over
to witness this, and it was beautiful.

1133
01:22:42,041 --> 01:22:44,168
Ladies and gentlemen,
comrades and friends,

1134
01:22:44,252 --> 01:22:47,213
this is "Graceland In Concert, 1987."

1135
01:22:54,303 --> 01:22:57,223
She's been in political exile now
for 27 years.

1136
01:22:57,306 --> 01:23:01,310
They call her Mama Africa,
the Queen of South African music,

1137
01:23:01,769 --> 01:23:03,271
Miriam Makeba.

1138
01:24:07,210 --> 01:24:11,756
The Zimbabwe concert
meant a lot to me and to a lot of us

1139
01:24:11,839 --> 01:24:14,842
because it was great
for South Africans to get together.

1140
01:24:15,051 --> 01:24:18,721
Not just black South Africans,
but black and white South Africans,

1141
01:24:18,804 --> 01:24:20,973
which is something that was never done.

1142
01:24:32,985 --> 01:24:36,822
Everybody knew how important
this moment is. It was amazing

1143
01:24:36,948 --> 01:24:40,868
because Masekela and Miriam,
they embraced the whole project

1144
01:24:40,952 --> 01:24:44,163
and really made sure we're doing it right.

1145
01:24:44,830 --> 01:24:48,376
It's very important to be unified.
They really prepped us really nice

1146
01:24:48,459 --> 01:24:50,336
and set an example for us.

1147
01:25:02,265 --> 01:25:06,686
I think the idea of us
singing the South African anthem,

1148
01:25:06,769 --> 01:25:11,399
it came from Paul.
It was the forbidden one at that time.

1149
01:25:11,732 --> 01:25:14,568
As soon as we'd start the song,
Paul would step back

1150
01:25:14,652 --> 01:25:18,322
because he didn't understand the lyrics,
you know.

1151
01:25:18,864 --> 01:25:22,201
But I think after two or three days,

1152
01:25:22,785 --> 01:25:25,788
we said, "No, Paul,
you have to learn the lyrics"

1153
01:25:25,871 --> 01:25:28,874
"because we are all one here.

1154
01:25:29,166 --> 01:25:32,503
"And this is about you and all of us.

1155
01:25:32,586 --> 01:25:35,214
"So you need to learn the lyrics."
So we taught him.

1156
01:25:41,304 --> 01:25:45,808
To be standing on the stage with people
whose lives were scarred by apartheid,

1157
01:25:45,891 --> 01:25:50,313
was very, very powerful.
I really felt privileged

1158
01:25:50,438 --> 01:25:52,982
and honored to be asked to be a part of it.

1159
01:26:00,239 --> 01:26:02,992
As Graceland became a phenomenon,

1160
01:26:03,075 --> 01:26:07,455
people began to put a very clear human face

1161
01:26:07,913 --> 01:26:09,957
on the victims of apartheid.

1162
01:26:10,249 --> 01:26:14,712
Suddenly, here's Joseph Shabalala.
Suddenly, here's Miriam Makeba.

1163
01:26:15,004 --> 01:26:18,632
Here's suddenly,
these charismatic, gifted people

1164
01:26:18,716 --> 01:26:23,929
and they are revealing a magical world.

1165
01:26:25,973 --> 01:26:28,684
And people said, "Oh, my God!"

1166
01:26:28,768 --> 01:26:31,354
"What do you mean that
that's going on there?"

1167
01:26:31,437 --> 01:26:33,439
"This is really a crime."

1168
01:26:33,647 --> 01:26:39,111
Not that they didn't think it before,
but suddenly it became a very powerful,

1169
01:26:39,195 --> 01:26:45,117
emotional realization. And that
is what was going on with Graceland.

1170
01:26:50,790 --> 01:26:54,960
But you can't forget that all of them
who had performed with you out there

1171
01:26:55,127 --> 01:26:59,382
returned to a country in which
they had no citizenship and no rights.

1172
01:27:00,007 --> 01:27:04,637
So as people themselves,
it may have been good for them,

1173
01:27:04,804 --> 01:27:07,890
in terms of their careers,
it may have been a wonderful thing,

1174
01:27:07,973 --> 01:27:10,893
in terms of
spreading the knowledge of our music,

1175
01:27:11,143 --> 01:27:14,271
but they are individuals,

1176
01:27:14,980 --> 01:27:17,858
and we were a nation under apartheid.

1177
01:27:18,651 --> 01:27:22,488
And so whatever was good for the nation
came first,

1178
01:27:22,571 --> 01:27:24,365
not what is good for a few individuals.

1179
01:27:27,410 --> 01:27:30,830
But what did the artists
have to say about that,

1180
01:27:31,122 --> 01:27:36,085
because my experience
from my own country, and in general,

1181
01:27:36,168 --> 01:27:41,507
is that there's a certain hierarchy.
At the top are the politicians.

1182
01:27:42,007 --> 01:27:43,426
And behind the politicians

1183
01:27:43,509 --> 01:27:46,887
are the mysterious people
who have money and power.

1184
01:27:47,304 --> 01:27:51,600
After that comes the warriors,
then comes the economists

1185
01:27:51,684 --> 01:27:54,687
who say, "This is how a structure must be."

1186
01:27:54,770 --> 01:27:58,357
And somewhere down the list
comes the artist.

1187
01:27:58,858 --> 01:28:01,902
And when the artist comes in,
the politician says,

1188
01:28:01,986 --> 01:28:04,864
"We really need you
to come and play for this fundraiser."

1189
01:28:05,114 --> 01:28:08,617
Or, "We have a very important dinner. We'd
like you to come and sing a few songs",

1190
01:28:08,701 --> 01:28:10,244
"acoustically after dinner."

1191
01:28:10,536 --> 01:28:14,999
"Come and take the love and respect
that people have for you"

1192
01:28:15,416 --> 01:28:20,504
"and by implication transfer that
to this candidate by your support."

1193
01:28:21,255 --> 01:28:27,928
The artists are always treated
as if we worked for the politicians.

1194
01:28:42,818 --> 01:28:48,032
Thank you.
Thank you and welcome to this reunion

1195
01:28:48,115 --> 01:28:51,994
of the 25th anniversary
of the release of Graceland.

1196
01:28:52,161 --> 01:28:56,582
These are the musicians who played
on the record and toured with us,

1197
01:28:56,665 --> 01:29:02,463
and it's been a great joy for me
to reunite with them

1198
01:29:02,546 --> 01:29:04,882
after so many years.

1199
01:29:22,775 --> 01:29:26,445
That was the flaw in the cultural boycott.

1200
01:29:26,612 --> 01:29:30,199
Saying, "We won't let you come over here
and record"

1201
01:29:30,282 --> 01:29:34,453
"and bring what you know
to intermingle with what we know"

1202
01:29:34,537 --> 01:29:36,914
"so that we can grow,
so that we all can grow."

1203
01:29:37,122 --> 01:29:42,795
"And so that we all can grow and speak
the deep truth that artists speak."

1204
01:30:14,493 --> 01:30:18,330
If there's anything
that can conquer the world, music.

1205
01:30:18,414 --> 01:30:21,417
A song,
you don't have to understand the language,

1206
01:30:21,500 --> 01:30:25,879
you just have to understand the feel.
I mean, it's 13 notes,

1207
01:30:25,963 --> 01:30:31,218
and every musician plays,
we're all playing around 13 notes.

1208
01:30:53,365 --> 01:30:56,368
Music evolved the way the album predicted.

1209
01:30:56,535 --> 01:30:59,413
A lot of people make music this way now.
This album is early sampling.

1210
01:30:59,622 --> 01:31:03,709
This album uses something from elsewhere
and puts you on top of it

1211
01:31:03,792 --> 01:31:07,379
and is a layered assemblage
of places and ideas.

1212
01:31:07,588 --> 01:31:09,298
And welcome to hip-hop.

1213
01:31:20,225 --> 01:31:22,978
I think when we look at the work
of a man like Paul,

1214
01:31:23,062 --> 01:31:25,731
you have to put it in the context
of a labor of a lifetime.

1215
01:31:26,523 --> 01:31:32,863
To articulate... What could we say?
The secrets of the human heart and mind.

1216
01:31:33,614 --> 01:31:36,617
What loftier ambition
could anyone have than that?

1217
01:31:37,159 --> 01:31:39,596
Now, you can say, "Well,
we should have talked about the protests",

1218
01:31:39,620 --> 01:31:41,830
"and this and that
and the bad things that happened."

1219
01:31:41,914 --> 01:31:43,499
The newspapers do that all the time.

1220
01:31:43,916 --> 01:31:47,878
People of far less talent than Paul
are very well adapted to do that,

1221
01:31:48,087 --> 01:31:51,423
and God bless them, they can do it.
But for Paul to be less than himself,

1222
01:31:51,924 --> 01:31:56,929
to satisfy a political correctness,
to me, would've been a waste,

1223
01:31:57,012 --> 01:31:58,263
and he never wastes his talent.

1224
01:32:25,249 --> 01:32:30,212
You Can Call Me Al
is really the story of somebody like me

1225
01:32:30,462 --> 01:32:34,925
who just goes to Africa with no idea

1226
01:32:35,008 --> 01:32:39,972
and ends up having
some extraordinary, spiritual experience.

1227
01:32:44,059 --> 01:32:48,772
"Angels in the architecture.
Spinning in infinity. Amen! Hallelujah!"

1228
01:32:48,856 --> 01:32:50,524
And starts off with,

1229
01:32:50,607 --> 01:32:53,485
"Why am I soft in the middle?
The rest of my life is so hard."

1230
01:32:53,569 --> 01:32:59,324
It was a self-obsessed person
becomes aware.

1231
01:33:18,343 --> 01:33:22,514
When Mandela finally was let out of jail,
everybody was ecstatic.

1232
01:33:23,348 --> 01:33:26,894
Thousands of people gather,
waiting for the first words

1233
01:33:26,977 --> 01:33:29,897
in more than 27 years, Nelson Mandela.

1234
01:33:29,980 --> 01:33:34,443
I greet you all in the name of peace,

1235
01:33:36,028 --> 01:33:38,739
democracy and freedom for all.

1236
01:33:47,206 --> 01:33:51,835
And then, ironically, we had the pleasure
of being invited by the ANC

1237
01:33:51,919 --> 01:33:56,548
to come and perform in South Africa
at Mandela's invitation.

1238
01:33:57,132 --> 01:33:58,383
In the news this morning,

1239
01:33:58,467 --> 01:34:02,471
Paul Simon opened his South African tour
last night with a concert in Johannesburg.

1240
01:34:03,889 --> 01:34:08,310
The UN and the ANC
believe that the cultural boycott

1241
01:34:08,393 --> 01:34:10,473
should be lifted,
and they've made that announcement.

1242
01:34:13,065 --> 01:34:17,027
I've never gone into any of these struggles
not believing it was going to end.

1243
01:34:17,361 --> 01:34:19,154
All oppression has to end.

1244
01:34:19,238 --> 01:34:25,244
And I think that art played a huge role
in defeating the apartheid system.

1245
01:34:25,702 --> 01:34:29,581
All the artists,
and I think Paul was one of them.

1246
01:34:31,291 --> 01:34:33,961
I think the thing is we are today free.

1247
01:34:34,378 --> 01:34:36,797
- Yes.
- And the journey to freedom

1248
01:34:37,172 --> 01:34:42,261
was not a straight road.
And there are those like yourself

1249
01:34:42,761 --> 01:34:46,765
who have, in some people's view,
a misunderstood legacy

1250
01:34:47,391 --> 01:34:51,728
when it comes to the cultural boycott.
But that doesn't go to you.

1251
01:34:52,229 --> 01:34:55,148
It goes to a political situation
which was forced on all of us.

1252
01:34:58,986 --> 01:35:05,450
The power of art, it lasts
because the political dispute that we had,

1253
01:35:05,534 --> 01:35:07,369
- it's just really gone...
- That's it.

1254
01:35:07,661 --> 01:35:10,706
- But the music still brings people together.
- That's it.

1255
01:35:10,789 --> 01:35:15,043
So that's it.
I make my case on behalf of artists.

1256
01:35:15,961 --> 01:35:21,216
And I apologize to you
if my lack of awareness

1257
01:35:21,300 --> 01:35:24,052
caused you any feelings
that I was harming the cause.

1258
01:35:24,136 --> 01:35:25,530
- I certainly never meant it.
- I know.

1259
01:35:25,554 --> 01:35:26,954
- And you know that. Good.
- I know.

1260
01:35:29,141 --> 01:35:32,769
We let bygones be bygones.
We're welcoming to all,

1261
01:35:32,853 --> 01:35:36,899
and that includes Paul Simon
because we have no malice towards you.

1262
01:35:37,399 --> 01:35:40,444
- We do not consider you somebody...
- I know that.

1263
01:35:40,527 --> 01:35:43,238
Who tried to stop our struggle.

1264
01:35:43,322 --> 01:35:47,576
We consider you somebody who
fell into the whirlpool of that struggle,

1265
01:35:48,160 --> 01:35:51,246
who did beautiful,
creative things within it,

1266
01:35:51,330 --> 01:35:56,585
but who was subject to the political storms
that were raging at that time.

1267
01:35:57,085 --> 01:36:01,632
But we love you.
You're a brother and you have our respect.

1268
01:36:01,840 --> 01:36:03,300
- I'm happy to hear it.
- Okay, man.

1269
01:36:03,383 --> 01:36:04,593
Thank you.