Steve Biko was a black South African, murdered in police custody in September of 1977, in apartheid-era South Africa.
Peter Gabriel released this tribute to Steve Biko in 1980, but you wouldn’t have known it by listening to American radio.
By 1985, the worldwide outcry against South African apartheid had reached a peak. In that year, producer Michael Mann used Peter Gabriel’s tribute to Steve Biko as part of the soundtrack for an episode from the first season of his hit TV show, Miami Vice.
Even though we had read and heard of the song, that was the first exposure many of us had to “Biko”.
“Wait, what? Is this it? This is it! Oh, my God, this is it. This is ‘Biko’!”
We were on the edges of our seats.
Even with the outcry, the activism, and the PBS specials on apartheid, you could not hear this song anywhere on Los Angeles radio, and Los Angeles is the second-largest radio market in the country. So, Miami Vice was the first and only place that many of us heard “Biko”.
Naturally, the producers did not use the song in an appropriate context.
Naturally, Peter Gabriel was unhappy about that, and he used his money and his clout to put a stop to it. These days, the only way you can see “Evan”, that controversial Miami Vice episode, is by purchasing the DVDs.
I think Peter Gabriel has a point, but I think there’s a point to letting protest songs be heard in unexpected, even inappropriate places. Isn’t that the function – the very definition – of a protest song?
There’s an official video for “Biko” available on YouTube, but I wanted an unofficial version, jarring and attention-grabbing precisely because of its inappropriate context. I wanted it the way I first heard it.
This is Peter Gabriel with “Biko”.
Peter Gabriel released this tribute to Steve Biko in 1980, but you wouldn’t have known it by listening to American radio.
By 1985, the worldwide outcry against South African apartheid had reached a peak. In that year, producer Michael Mann used Peter Gabriel’s tribute to Steve Biko as part of the soundtrack for an episode from the first season of his hit TV show, Miami Vice.
Even though we had read and heard of the song, that was the first exposure many of us had to “Biko”.
“Wait, what? Is this it? This is it! Oh, my God, this is it. This is ‘Biko’!”
We were on the edges of our seats.
Even with the outcry, the activism, and the PBS specials on apartheid, you could not hear this song anywhere on Los Angeles radio, and Los Angeles is the second-largest radio market in the country. So, Miami Vice was the first and only place that many of us heard “Biko”.
Naturally, the producers did not use the song in an appropriate context.
Naturally, Peter Gabriel was unhappy about that, and he used his money and his clout to put a stop to it. These days, the only way you can see “Evan”, that controversial Miami Vice episode, is by purchasing the DVDs.
I think Peter Gabriel has a point, but I think there’s a point to letting protest songs be heard in unexpected, even inappropriate places. Isn’t that the function – the very definition – of a protest song?
There’s an official video for “Biko” available on YouTube, but I wanted an unofficial version, jarring and attention-grabbing precisely because of its inappropriate context. I wanted it the way I first heard it.
This is Peter Gabriel with “Biko”.
No comments:
Post a Comment