Johannesburg (song)

"Johannesburg" is a song by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, with music provided by the Midnight Band.

[5] Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson met and began collaborating while they were both students at Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania.

[3] Several members of the Midnight Band had previously played with the Black & Blues, a musical group Scott-Heron and Jackson had formed as students.

[2] Scott-Heron's lyrics expressed his Pan-African and transnational leanings, likening apartheid to the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the United States.

[2] The song ends by comparing Johannesburg to a number of cities in the US, thereby noting the "absence of an achieved freedom on American soil", according to scholar Stéphane Robolin.

[15] The reissue included a 1982 live recording of "Johannesburg", on which Scott-Heron induced the audience to playing the part of the chorus on the call and response refrain.

[16] Unusually for a song with a political message, "Johannesburg" became a popular hit, receiving playtime on the radio and reaching No.