I found this on Youtube and wanted to share it with everyone. It's a video for the song Biko, by Peter Gabriel. Stephen Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist who was killed by the police in 1977 while in custody. I was at the Amnesty International concert in Chicago in 1986 and heard Peter Gabriel perform this song live. It's incredibly powerful. And if you ever get a chance, rent the movie Cry Freedom, which is about Biko and Donald Woods,a white journalist who escaped South Africa to tell his story to the world. It's an profound movie, with Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline giving great performances. There are clips from that movie interspersed with this performance. Here's the clip:
- Log in to post comments
I saw Peter Gabriel in 1987 for the "So" tour in Washington DC. This song was the final encore. It went on for about 10 minutes. It was then and remains today the best live performance I have ever seen.
It is interesting to remember that Cry Freedom was filmed in Zimbabwe as it couldn't be filmed in South Africa at the time. How times change.
A great movie that actually came out behind the times. Events in SA moving faster than the filming.
Donald Woods' books on Steven Biko and his life in SA are excellent too.
South Africa seems to be caught in the momentum of an infernal pendulum as anti-white racism takes shape. White farmers face mandatory sale of their land for redistribution to blacks who claim it was theirs. Sounds great but expect S. Africa to be needing food aid in five years.
That's the real problem of racism - it doesn't just stop. Even under the dampening effect of law, the pendulum will swing back and forth probably for generations as each side makes counterclaims.
I too saw Peter Gabriel perform "Biko" at an Amnesty International Concert and to this day, even hearining a small portion of the song makes stop and think and cry.
Thanks for sharing Ed. I was touched by Stevie wonders middle on on Gary Byrds "the crown"
"I do recall so very well
When I was just a little boy
I used to hurry home from school
I used to always feel so blue
Because there was no mention in the books we read about my heritage
So therefore any information that I got was education
Bums, hobos at depot stations
I would listen with much patience
Or to relatives who told the tales that they were told to pass ahead
And then one day from someone old
I heard a story never told
Of all the kingdoms of my people
And then how we fought for our freedom
All about the many things we have unto the world contributed
You wear the Crown"
Didn't really chart Stateside, I hear.
Sometimes pop artists do us a service by introducing the greater audience to something that needs watching beyond fashion and bringing a new generation along (sometimes our kids would never believe us if we said the same thing...) A point to consider when I see people commenting that artists shouldn't be social activists (Penn, Robbins, Sarandon, etc).
Steven Van Zandt of Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul and Jackson Browne among those busybodies that raise awareness, but Peter Gabriel has a more complete body of work (as well as being more artistically eclectic) as a social activist. I think that the Brits are strong in that sense with Bob Geldof and even Annie Lennox adding their voices well and stepping into the breech when necessary.
Personally, I found it trying to listen to Genesis after Gabriel left the band, but I'm glad that he did leave and go on his own. For me, Trespass was the best Genesis album, although to be fair, A Trick of the Tail in the post-Gabriel era was also very strong and did not deviate from Gabriel inspired Genesis too much.