Third World stars sing out on behalf of social cause

By Jon Spayde

The 1985 hit album We are the World, headlined by Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, and Lionel Richie, was a landmark in charitable giving: American musicians dedicating an album to famine relief in Africa.  These days, however, Third World musicians are acting on their own behalf, with Westerners helping but not running the show.  One result has been a recent pair of first-rate projects in which musicians from the developing world and the West band together to highlight urgent issues – while singing and playing up a storm. 

While We Are The World focused simply on relieving suffering in Africa and other poor countries, a new album targets some of the root causes of that suffering.  Drop the Debt (World Village / Harmonia Mundi) is a batch of new songs and covers by the likes of Cape Verdian diva Cesaria Evora, Zimbabwe’s highly political pop star Oliver Mtukudzi, Chico Cesar from Brazin, and the Fabulous Troubadors from France.  The point of the project, the brainchild of French world music entrepreneur Francois Mauger, is to call attention to the punishing debt load carried by Third World countries.  Many pay up to 40 percent of their GNP to banks in the developed world, often on loaned originally signed by corrupt leaders who have been driven by power.  Not only did some of the loan money end up in the Swiss bank accounts of dictators, but the Herculean task of paying it all back is crippling health care, rural development, and a host of other crying needs in the global South.  In ironically cheerful, danceable songs, these committed musicians call for a moratorium on the debt.  As Chico Cesar sings, “I don’t pay when I can’t.  You gave me ten, and you want a hundred back.”