RegendansThirty One Years Ago Today Stevie Wonder’s Music Was Banned In South Africa
Stevie Wonder's public support for Nelson Mandela prompted the apartheid regime to censor his music.
March 26, 2016 - 4:41 p.m.
In his 1985 Oscar speech for “I Just Called To Say I Loved You” Stevie Wonder accepted the statuette on behalf of Nelson Mandela before moving on to thank Dionne Warwick and Gene Wilder.
A fleeting moment, perhaps, but for the white supremacist regime in South Africa it was enough to issue a broadcast ban on Wonder’s music. But Stevie Wonder’s connection to the anti-apartheid struggle went deeper than just the one speech. The same year—1985—Wonder hired exiled South African musicians to play on the song “It’s Wrong (Apartheid)" for the album “In Square Circle.”
🪡
#apartheid #music #StevieWonder #SouthAfrica #racism #protest
