"Sun City" is a 1985 protest song

Protest song

A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...

 written by Steven Van Zandt

Steven Van Zandt

Steven Van Zandt is an Italian-American musician, songwriter, arranger, record producer, actor, and radio disc jockey, who frequently goes by the stage names Little Steven or Miami Steve...

, produced by Van Zandt and Arthur Baker

Arthur Baker

Arthur Baker may refer to:* Arthur Baker , calligrapher and typeface designer* Arthur Baker , record producer and DJ...

 and recorded by Artists United Against Apartheid

Artists United Against Apartheid

Artists United Against Apartheid was a 1985 protest group founded by activist and performer Steven Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker to protest apartheid in South Africa...

 to convey opposition to the South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n policy of apartheid. The primary means of that opposition is to declare that all the artists involved would refuse any and all offers to perform at Sun City

Sun City, North West

Sun City is a luxury casino and resort, situated in the North West Province of South Africa. It is located about two hours' drive from Johannesburg, near the city of Rustenburg. The complex borders the Pilanesberg Game Reserve.- History :...

, a resort which was located in Bantustan

Bantustan

A bantustan was a territory set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa , as part of the policy of apartheid...

 of Bophuthatswana

Bophuthatswana

Bophuthatswana , officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana was a Bantustan – an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity – and nominal parliamentary democracy in the northwestern region of South Africa...

, one of a number of internationally unrecognized supposed "independent" states created by the South African government to forcibly relocate its black population.

History

Van Zandt was interested in writing a song about South Africa's Sun City

Sun City, North West

Sun City is a luxury casino and resort, situated in the North West Province of South Africa. It is located about two hours' drive from Johannesburg, near the city of Rustenburg. The complex borders the Pilanesberg Game Reserve.- History :...

 casino resort, to make parallels with the plight of Native Americans

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

. Danny Schechter

Danny Schechter

Danny Schechteris a television producer, independent filmmaker, blogger, and media critic who writes and lectures frequently about the media in the United States and worldwide. He specializes in investigative journalism and producing programming about the interfaces among human rights, journalism,...

, a journalist who was then working with ABC News

ABC News

ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...

' 20/20, suggested turning the song into a different kind of "We Are the World

We Are the World

"We Are the World" is a song and charity single originally recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian for the album We Are the World...

", or as Schechter explains, "a song about change not charity, freedom not famine."

As Van Zandt was writing it, Schechter suggested that he include the names of the artists who had played Sun City in defiance of a United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

-sanctioned cultural boycott. "I was probably still thinking of 20/20's exposé of conservative Africanists 15 years earlier," says Schechter.

Musically speaking, the song was a fusion of hip-hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

 (which was still in its early development), R&B, and hard rock

Hard rock

Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

. The main hook is multiple successive artists singing "I, I, I, I, I, I" , followed by all the artists together, singing "ain't gonna play Sun City!"

When Van Zandt was finished writing "Sun City", he, Baker and Schechter spent the next several months searching for artists to participate in recording it. Van Zandt initially declined to invite Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...

, not wanting to take advantage of their friendship, but Schechter had no problem asking himself; Springsteen accepted the invitation. Van Zandt was also shy about calling legendary jazz artist Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

, whom Schechter also contacted; with minimal persuasion, Davis also accepted. Eventually, Van Zandt, Baker and Schechter would gather a wide array of artists, including Kool DJ Herc, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Ruben Blades

Rubén Blades

Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres...

, Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

, Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr

Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

 and his son Zak Starkey

Zak Starkey

Zak Starkey is an English rock drummer. He is the son of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr and Starr's first wife Maureen Starkey Tigrett. He is also well known for his unofficial membership in the English rock band The Who, with whom he has performed and recorded since 1996. He is also the third...

, Lou Reed

Lou Reed

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...

, Run DMC, Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel

Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...

, David Ruffin

David Ruffin

Davis Eli "David" Ruffin was an American soul singer and musician most famous for his work as one of the lead singers of the Temptations from 1964 to 1968...

, Eddie Kendricks

Eddie Kendricks

Eddie Kendricks was an American singer and songwriter. Noted for his distinctive falsetto singing style, Kendricks co-founded the Motown singing group The Temptations, and was one of their lead singers from 1960 until 1971. His was the lead voice on such famous songs as "The Way You Do The Things...

, Darlene Love

Darlene Love

Darlene Love is an American popular music singer and actress. She gained prominence in the 1960s for the song "He's a Rebel," a #1 American single in 1962, and was part of the Phil Spector stable that produced a celebrated Christmas album in 1963....

, Bobby Womack

Bobby Womack

Robert Dwayne "Bobby" Womack is an American singer-songwriter and musician. An active recording artist since the early 1960s where he started his career as the lead singer of his family musical group The Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career has spanned more than 40...

, Afrika Bambaataa

Afrika Bambaataa

Afrika Bambaataa is an American DJ from the South Bronx, New York who was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the "Grandfather" and the Amen Ra of Universal...

, Kurtis Blow

Kurtis Blow

Kurt Walker , better known by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapper and record producer. He is one of the first commercially successful rappers and the first to sign with a major record label...

, Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....

 and then-girlfriend Daryl Hannah

Daryl Hannah

Daryl Christine Hannah is an American film actress. After making her screen debut in 1978, Hannah starred in a number of Hollywood films throughout the 1980s, notably Blade Runner, Splash, Wall Street and Roxanne and Kill Bill.-Early life:Hannah was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Susan...

, U2

U2

U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

, George Clinton

George Clinton (funk musician)

George Clinton is an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and launched a solo career in 1981. He has been cited as one of the foremost...

, Keith Richards

Keith Richards

Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...

, Ronnie Wood, Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...

, Hall & Oates

Hall & Oates

Hall & Oates are an American musical duo composed of Daryl Hall and John Oates. They achieved their greatest fame in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s. Both sing and play instruments. They specialized in a fusion of rock and roll and rhythm and blues styles, which they dubbed "rock and soul."...

, Jimmy Cliff

Jimmy Cliff

Jimmy Cliff, OM is a Jamaican musician, singer and actor. He is the only currently living musician to hold the Order of Merit, the highest honour that can be granted by the Jamaican government for achievement in the arts and sciences...

, Big Youth

Big Youth

Manley Augustus Buchanan , better known as Big Youth , is a Jamaican deejay, mostly known for his work during the 1970s....

, Michael Monroe

Michael Monroe

Matti Antero Kristian Fagerholm , best known by his stage name, Michael Monroe, is a Finnish rock musician, and multi-instrumentalist who rose to fame as the vocalist for the glam punk band Hanoi Rocks, and has served as the frontman for all-star side projects, such as Demolition 23...

, Peter Garrett

Peter Garrett

Peter Robert Garrett, AM, MP , is an Australian musician, environmentalist, activist and politician.Garrett was lead singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil from 1973 until its disbanding in 2002...

, Ron Carter

Ron Carter

Ron Carter is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that...

, Ray Barretto

Ray Barretto

Ray Barretto was a Grammy Award-winning Puerto Rican jazz musician.-Early years:Barretto was born in New York City of Puerto Rican descent...

, Gil-Scott Heron, Nona Hendryx

Nona Hendryx

Nona Hendryx is an American vocalist, producer, songwriter, musician, author, and actress.Hendryx is known for her work as a solo artist as well as for being one-third of the trio Labelle, who had a hit with "Lady Marmalade." Her music has ranged from soul, funk, dance, and R&B to hard rock, art...

, Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend

Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...

, Pat Benatar

Pat Benatar

Pat Benatar is an American singer and four-time Grammy winner. She had considerable commercial success particularly in the United States...

, and Joey Ramone

Joey Ramone

Joey Ramone was an American vocalist and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist in the punk rock band the Ramones. Joey Ramone's image, voice and tenure as frontman of the Ramones made him a countercultural icon.-Early life:Joey Ramone was born Jeffry Hyman to parents Noel and Charlotte Hyman...

.

303 tracks were mixed-down to create "Sun City." A music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 directed by Jonathan Demme

Jonathan Demme

Robert Jonathan Demme is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. Best known for directing The Silence of the Lambs, which won him the Academy Award for Best Director, he has also directed the acclaimed movies Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married, the Talking Heads concert movie Stop...

 with Godley and Creme was also produced.

Reception

"Sun City" only reached #38 on the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Hot 100 chart in December 1985. Only about half of American radio stations played "Sun City", with some objecting to the lyrics' explicit criticism of President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

's policy of "constructive engagement

Constructive engagement

Constructive engagement was the name given to the policy of the Reagan Administration towards the apartheid regime in South Africa in the early 1980s...

." The song was banned in South Africa itself.

The song did somewhat better overseas, reaching #21 on the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

, #4

Kent Music Report

The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to 1998...

 in Australia and achieving chart action in a number of other European countries, becoming a substantial hit in The Netherlands. It was also a top ten single in Canada in December 1985 and January 1986.

"Sun City" was picked as record of the year by many of the most influential music critics, topping the prestigious international Pazz & Jop Critics Poll for best single of the year.