Why fighting apartheid with music might be Steven Van Zandt's proudest moment
It’s not often you think about bringing down a government, says singer who performed with Bruce Springsteen
Originally published on Nov. 19, 2021.
Steven Van Zandt sees himself as many things. He's an accomplished singer, songwriter, and producer who's been widely recognized for his musical achievements. He also has acting credits, most famously as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos.
But it wasn't until he was asked a question by a young German kid in 1980 that he saw himself as something else: an American.
"He stopped me in the park and he says, 'Tell me something: why are you putting missiles in our country?' And I really had no idea what he was talking [about]," he told The Current's Matt Galloway.
Van Zandt was on tour in western Europe with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
At the time, Van Zandt wasn't interested in politics. But the question bugged him for days.
"I finally came to the conclusion … 'This kid is not looking at me like a guitar player or a factory worker or a Republican or a Democrat. He's looking at me as an American,'" he said. "And I'm embarrassed to say it had never even occurred to me before."
That realization spurred Van Zandt to do some research. He bought every book he could find about U.S. foreign policy post-World War II, and studied the works of scholars like Noam Chomsky.
It was a political awakening for the then-30-year-old.
"I [wondered] what else I'm doing. I [wondered] what other obligations and responsibilities I have as a citizen of America,'" he said.
He details that journey in his new memoir, Unrequited Infatuations.
Fighting bullies
That summer, Van Zandt was approached by EMI-America with a record deal. It led to the creation of his on-and-off group known as Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul.
At the time, Van Zandt had never had a career as a solo artist or as the lead in a band. But it allowed the musician to have a strong say in how much of his newfound political awakening was going to be implemented into his art.
WATCH: Why Steve Van Zandt prefers playing in bands instead of going solo
Each of Van Zandt's first five albums tackled a section of a five-part political concept cycle: the individual, the family, the state, the economy and religion.
The general theme of his 1984 album, Voice of America, was opposition to American foreign policy in the Ronald Reagan era.
"I hate bullies, always have. So I'm kind of attracted to fighting them wherever possible," he said.
Bringing down an apartheid government
One of Van Zandt's proudest fights was against apartheid in South Africa.
"I had made two trips to South Africa because I was doing research," he said. "And at that point, I was about to transform from an artist-journalist … into an artist-journalist-activist."
On his second trip, Van Zandt visited the township of Soweto, a largely Black part of the country. When Van Zandt arrived, he found the area blockaded by the military — and protests happening within the township's walls.
Those scenes, along with the interviews he conducted with Black South Africans and the liberation movement known as the Azanian People's Organisation, encouraged Van Zandt to help the oppressed people take down the regime.
"It's not very often you sit down and say, 'OK, how can I bring down a government?'" he said.
You never saw oil companies there, you never saw car companies helping anybody," he said. "It was always us.-Steve Van Zandt
Though Van Zandt couldn't get involved militarily, he did find a way to contribute to the resistance through music: by tackling the Sun City Resort.
In the December 1980, the United Nations imposed a cultural boycott on South Africa. This boycott called on artists, academics, philosophers and cultural practitioners to refuse to participate in any activities in the country.
To circumvent the boycott, the regime declared certain spots as separate countries unrecognized by the international communities. Regime officials or independent businessmen overpaid artists to perform in those areas, according to Van Zandt.
One of those spots was the Sun City Resort in the Bophuthatswana territory. The venue played hosts to notable artists during the boycott, including Frank Sinatra, Elton John and Queen.
Meanwhile, the apartheid regime forced Black South Africans into these non-existent countries under the guise of returning them to their tribal lands, and then brought them back as "immigrant labour," according to Van Zandt.
It was "a brilliantly evil scheme," he said.
Van Zandt chose the resort as the subject for his own artistic boycott. He turned to the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid to produce the song Sun City in 1985, which exposed what was going on in the resort.
Forty-nine recording artists collaborated on the song, including big names like Springsteen, U2 and Bob Dylan. They also pledged to never perform at the resort.
But for Van Zandt, it was never about collaborating with as many big-name artists as possible.
"The people we chose to be on Sun City were not because they were most famous," he said. "[It's] because of what they were saying with their work, and were engaged in some kind of social activity, social consciousness or political consciousness."
The song was modestly successful. But more importantly, Van Zandt believes it played a key role in informing Americans about what was going on inside the apartheid country's borders.
I don't think we'll ever see such a total success again in our lifetime.
By doing so, Van Zandt hoped American politicians would be swayed to go against any veto made by then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan regarding an economic sanctions bill.
The plan seemingly worked. In 1986, after Reagan vetoed a bill to impose sanctions on South Africa, Congress overruled the veto. It marked the first time American Congress had overridden a presidential foreign policy veto.
"In this case, it had the ultimate impact," Van Zandt said. "I don't think we'll ever see such a total success again in our lifetime."
The power of music
Van Zandt says his new memoir Unrequited Infatuations "is not a typical rock biography."
"I wanted the book to be like a detective novel; like a Dan Brown book, where you don't know what's coming next," he said.
WATCH: Performing live is the "fun part of life": Van Zandt.
Van Zandt said he's proud of his activist work, and of the work other artists in the entertainment industry do to address social issues and call for change.
He believes this is the true message of art — and why it's powerful enough to bring down regimes.
"You never saw oil companies there, never saw car companies helping anybody," he said. "It was always us."
Written by Mouhamad Rachini. Produced by Howard Goldenthal.
