@@kbanghart no it wasnt. Stevie wonder was trippin. No one agreed with his idea to add swahili. Especially due to the fact that in Ethopia the dont even speak swahili. It was a last minute thing. No time to change things up at 4am while quincy jones already had it planned and mapped out
@@FromTheHood2TheWoods I agree there wasn't time to add it. But the excuse that no one speaks it in whatever country is silly excuse BS. Waylon was just pandering to his redneck racist fans, and he probably was a bit racist himself.
@@FromTheHood2TheWoods Stevie was annoying and entitled, and everybody ended up disagreeing with the silly Swahili lyric, proving Jenning's point. BUT, if Jennings DID say that shit about "Ain't no good ol' boy ever sung in Swahili", it kinda colours his reaction in a different light, pun intended.
Kenny Rogers' then-manager Ken Kragen was one of the organizers. He wrote about it in his book Life Is a Contact Sport. Stevie Wonder was supposed to help write the song. After Lionel and Michael did it, he offered a few suggestions. This was a very bad one. Even great artists can make mistakes. Look at all the great songwriters on the session. Suppose they'd taken more time and each contributed some lines. My high school class chose this as our graduation song. I had nothing to do with it. In fact, I tried to get a line change. The one about God turning stones to bread misquoted the Bible. Waylon's actions are consistent with his outlaw character. But it's good to know that other artists also objected. The song did raise a lot of money. Besides the single, they also put out a whole album. Unlike Do They Know It's Christmas, the song wasn't just for one season. Christian artists later recorded Do Something Now. This group featured Amy Grant, Sandi Patty, Evie Karlsson, Russ Taff, Steve Camp, and Lisa Whelchel. But they only did the one song.
He may have surmised that the language which was the point of the topic at that moment was Swahili, but I’m damn impressed that he said those words while walking out, if he actually did. So many people fully disregard the glory of other cultures simply because it is another culture, not realizing how much spiritual and intellectual growth can be had by just CONSIDERING some attributes of any culture not their own. And this is world wide. Animals are not even so dismissive. In the 80’s, if you asked 1000 random people from the Western Hemisphere, whether they were entertainment stars, lawyers, doctors, ditch diggers, line cooks, it matters not, but ask them to name ANY African language and I’d be blown away if more than 50 people could name one. Swahili is the national language of Kenya. “Jambo”. “Hello to you as well.” But for Waylon to actually call out that by name is impressive. You’d figure some outlaw country badass wouldn’t say the name even if he knew it well, just for the sake of not coming off as conformist. After all, outlaw country guys are the punk rockers of country. But overall, I think it would have been quintessentially important, prescient, and a showing of utmost respect to cement the reputation’s of everyone involved, to have included simple acknowledgements of other cultures, in whatever way they could, obviously assuming it would be done tastefully and d appropriately. For Kenny Roger’s to have sung “We are the world”, in Swahili, for one chorus, would have brought even more gravity to the meaning of the whole thing. Follow that up with Stevie singing the same words in Vietnamese, Cyndi Lauper singing it in decipherable English, that’s a solid joke right there, and have The Boss sing it in Hebrew, and Michael Jackson sing it in Russian, wrapping up with Kim Carnes singing it in Jive. Epic. “Us-in’s been the whole mufuckin crème filled chocolate ball our asses call mutha fuckin Earth, us-in been dem keeids what did suck that tittie, an we ain’t quit dat till we was 14 years old!! Das right you bad mofos!” You know, Jive. Kim Carnes. It wouldn’t be any different than Barbara Billingsley speaking Jive in the movie “Airplane!” “Sheeeeit, poppa don’t want no help, poppa don’t get no help. Sheeeeeit!” But to have included a comprehensive sampling of world culture could have lended much needed and appreciated credence to the whole effort. Authenticity would have been the word of the decade. Ain’t no good ole boy singing no Swahili. Wow. Fuck it. He stood up for what he believed in. He thought they were fake and full of it. Asking EVERYONE to sing ONLY Swahili would have been pretty shitty. Just sayin.
I gotta agree and disagree about more country artists, you had every genre represented and I think they could have had a female country singer to the song, but they had pretty much equal amounts of each genre. I definitely dont think the rock guys were over shadowing the country artists. You had Steve, Bruce pretty much for the Rock and Willie and Kenny for Country. You would have had Wayland if his oversized ego didn't come into play. He couldnt suck it up for one night?
I heard it was Michael Jackson who suggested the Swahili line and it was Stevie wonder who pointed it out that none of the countries they were singing in aid of had many Swahili speakers. Or course this is just what I have heard, so I'm just mentioning it here to compare notes and hopefully get to the bottom of it, I'm not saying that I am right and you are wrong. Personally, I do not agree with the Swahili line, if its not concerning Swahili speaking people. I'm Irish, and to me that would be like having a concert in aid of Ireland with French in it. Yes, we are both European, but Europe is a big diverse place, as is Africa. I'd love to know the exact reason why Waylon disagreed with it. I've heard people calling him a racist regarding this incident, but that seems to be jumping the gun a bit, as I can see many reasons why he might've walked out. I, personally wouldn't feel comfortable singing in a language I was not familiar with, as I'd really have no idea how it would sound to native speakers, and it could very easily sound terrible without me realizing it. As for the "No good old boy sings in Swahili" comment, well that could've just been spoken in anger. I've certainly said stuff in anger, we all have. I have no dog in this race, I just want to get to the bottom of this. If anyone knows more about this recording session I'd really love to hear it about it.
- Watch the documentary to know who suggested what. That "No good old boy sings in Swahili" was very suspect, and allows me to reasonably say that the man was a jerk.
Rockers?? I saw Motown, country, disco, pop artists and some rockers. This dude thinks Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Dionne Warwick, Michael Jackson were rockers?? LOL
No that's not why at all apparently you don't know nothing Stevie Wonder wanted them to sing a verse in Swahili and learn it Nobody was on board with it but the funny part was Waylon just basically said Good Ole Boys Don't sing in Swahili. And then he left
Waylon left and didn't come back.He was being impatient and walked away from doing something very important and fulfilling. Dick move Waylon! This is why Willie is the best!
