A hip, young veejay, sporting an outfit reminiscent of Don Johnson in his glory days, holds up a piece of fan mail and directly addresses the camera with a wry smile: ‘We'll see if we can read this when we come back from the video, which is Sun City by Artists United Against –’ He breaks off his introduction and turns to his co-host to refresh his memory. ‘Apartheid’, she finishes. He nods in approval. ‘That's it. Be right back.’ And the new video begins. The veejay's momentary loss for words can be excused. In 1985, the year the video in question premiered, ‘apartheid’ was still something of a foreign word to the producers and consumers of American popular culture. It would not remain so.

Earlier that year, Steven Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen's back-up man and future Sopranos cast member, wrote and produced one of the most influential American protest songs of the decade. ‘Sun City’, released by the non-profit collective Artists United Against Apartheid (AUAA), combined the talents of fifty-four musicians and singers in an effort to make the South African megaresort of the same name an anathema for international performers. While Van Zandt's single and subsequent album never achieved vast commercial success, his project significantly affected the anti-apartheid movement throughout the world. A comprehensive cultural endeavour, the ‘Sun City’ project included an album as well as fact sheets about apartheid, a music video, and a book on the making of the record.