Damon Albarn criticises Bob Geldof’s Band Aid 30

British rocker Damon Albarn has criticised Bob Geldof’s latest Band Aid charity project and urged the artists who took part to make a real difference by going to Africa instead of just singing about it. The Blur rocker was not among the stars, including Bono and One Direction, who recorded parts on a new version of monster hit Do They Know It’s Christmas? for a new incarnation of the Band Aid project which Geldof founded in the 1980s.
The new single is raising money for Ebola victims in western Africa, but Albarn, who has made numerous trips to the continent over the years, fears the money-raising scheme is not the best way to help people in need.
He tells Britain’s Channel 4 News TV show, “Having been to many countries and gotten to know many people, it always seems that we have only one view of it. Our perspective and our idea of what helps and our idea of what’s wrong and right are not necessarily shared by other cultures.
“There are problems with our idea of charity, especially these things that suddenly balloon out of nothing and then create a media frenzy where some of that essential communication is lost… and it starts to feel like it’s a process where if you give money you solve the problem, and really sometimes giving money creates another problem… All those people who are making that (record), taking that afternoon out of their schedules, go to Africa, experience it, feel that sense of magic and maybe have a different attitude to life when you come back.”
The first Band Aid effort in 1984 raised money for those affected by famine in Ethiopia and the 2004 revival brought in money for the troubled Darfur region of Sudan.