Paul Simon’s Graceland: the acclaim and the outrage

The outrage, of course, stems from Simon’s breaking of the cultural boycott of the later apartheid years. But he wasn’t playing his own music to white audiences for a fat paycheque: he was helping to bring the music of black South Africans to wider attention. And I disagree completely with Jerry Dammers that it did “more harm than good”. Billy Bragg pretty much sums up the whole kerfuffle when he says Simon was on “the wrong side of the argument” — as if this unique situation fitted into the manichaean nature of the apartheid struggle. Also note Jonas Gwangwa’s smartalec racial politicking about how it took “another white man to discover my people”. Spare me, please.

Fri 13 Jul 2012 at 17:46   ·