Blast From The Past- Jimmy Cliff Against Apartheid

The 1980's was a popular decade for artists to get together in the form of supergroups to sing songs for various worthy causes. The most noted projects were Band Aid and USA For Africa. Both of those efforts raised money for famine relief in Africa by selling tons of records. But from my perspective, the coolest project was Artists United Against Apartheid. They got together and did a song/video called "Sun City". Jimmy Cliff was one of the artists involved in this very worthwhile project. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjWENNe29qc

For those of you who don't know, the Sun City area in South Africa was a "whites only" resort region where the controlling white minority in that country could go on vacation and not have any contact with black citizens other than those who worked there. While this was happening, pop artists from all over the world were earning LOTS of money by performing for the white guests in Sun City. But since apartheid was nothing more than blatant, brutal racism peppered with homicide and other criminal activity to defend its existence, a number of performers decided to say no to the big paychecks provided by performing at Sun City. This song was their statement. I am still blown away by the roster of artists who participated, and it is such a cool thing to see Mr. Cliff in the video.

And let me finish by saying this...anyone reading this who is too young to remember apartheid, you are lucky to have been born into a world where this isolated instance of organzied criminal intolerance no longer exists. If you want to learn more, start by watching the movie Cry Freedom and doing the appropriate Google searches.