‘It was a damn unicorn’: the pioneering, divisive power of Paul Simon’s Graceland at 40

  

"Kahn believes that Simon had the musicians’ labor rights in mind. “He wanted to have them participate, he wanted them to be credited and he wanted them to be compensated,” said Kahn, emphatically noting that Simon paid the South African musicians triple the daily rate of musicians in American unions. “Did he do it perfectly? No. But there wasn’t a set formula of how to approach this.” Simon has still faced backlash over the years about Graceland’s songwriting credits from several musicians who appeared on the album, including Los Lobos, Rockin’ Dopsie and the Zydeco Twisters, and even guitarist Ray Phiri, who helped construct the album’s title track. Against charges of cultural appropriation, Graceland advocates have suggested that Simon’s work in South Africa helped bring these bands, such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who round out the starry-eyed Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, to a larger audience."

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‘It was a damn unicorn’: the pioneering, divisive power of Paul Simon’s Graceland at 40 | Paul Simon | The Guardian