Paul Simon's 40-Year-Old Graceland Still Shapes Pop as Apartheid-Era Recording Debate Endures
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Aug 20
Paul Simon's 40-Year-Old Graceland Still Shapes Pop as Apartheid-Era Recording Debate Endures
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 20
Summary
Forty years after its release, Graceland is being reassessed as both Paul Simon’s most influential album and a lasting flashpoint over cultural appropriation and apartheid-era collaboration.
1985 Johannesburg sessions transformed Simon’s songwriting: he built songs from South African township rhythms rather than acoustic guitar, paying local musicians triple U.S. union daily rates, according to biographer Ashley Kahn.
That method collided with politics. Recording in South Africa drew boycott criticism, the UN anti-apartheid committee briefly censured Simon after the 1986 release, then reversed course after he said the ban covered performing, not recording.
The album’s legacy remains split between praise for elevating artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo and criticism over songwriting credits and white artists profiting from Black music.
Commercially, Graceland was a slow-burn success—debuting at No. 94 on the Billboard 200 in 1986 before peaking at No. 3 in 1987—and its genre-mixing influence still echoes in artists including Vampire Weekend and Lorde.