‘This little pop music has saved thousands and thousands of individuals alive’: Bob Geldof defends Band Aid 40 as musicians distance themselves from ‘colonial’ Christmas single that’s ‘dangerous to Africa’

Bob Geldof has defended the revival of Band Aid 40 after backlash from critics who claim the ‘colonial’ Christmas single perpetuates harmful stereotypes about Africa. 

Ed Sheeran and Fuse ODG are among those who have criticised the song Do They Know It’s Christmas?, which has been condemned for fuelling ‘pity rather than partnership’.

London-born Ghanaian-English rapper Fuse ODG spoke out today, as he released a response called We Know It’s Christmas and urged the BBC not to promote the song.

He told ITV‘s Good Morning Britain that treating the 1984 famine in Ethiopia – which originally inspired Band Aid – as an Africa-wide issue would be similar to labelling all of Europe ‘war-stricken’ due to the conflict in Ukraine.

It comes after Sheeran revealed he would have ‘respectfully declined’ permission for use of his vocals on the charity hit, while other critics have included Lily Allen and Damon Albarn.

But Bob Geldof hit back saying: ‘It’s a pop song ffs.  There IS endemic hunger due to the unforgiving soil conditions. Water IS scarce save for a scattering of unreliable wells. Rain IS increasingly unreliable.

‘Climate change affects the poorest first and worst. War exacerbates these conditions. Xmas IS celebrated throughout Ethiopia according to their own calendar i.e. two weeks after our holiday.’

‘This little pop song has kept hundreds of thousands if not millions of people alive. In fact just today Band Aid has given hundreds of thousands of pounds to help those running from the mass slaughter in Sudan and enough cash to feed a further 8,000 children in the same affected areas of Ethiopia as 1984.’

The musician, 33, originally featured on the 2014 version of the track – spearheaded by Geldof and Midge Ure – alongside the likes of Sting and Harry Styles which aimed to raise money for the Ebola relief efforts.

Yet amid the upcoming release of the 2024 Ultimate Mix of the song to its 40th anniversary, Ed has told how he would have denied permission to add his voice to the new version had he been asked.

Taking to his Instagram stories on Sunday, Sheeran: ‘My approval wasn’t sought on this new Band Aid 40 release and had I had the choice I would have respectfully declined the use of my vocals.

‘A decade on and my understanding of the narrative associated with this has changed, eloquently explained by @fuseodg. This is just my personal stance, I’m hoping it’s a forward-looking one. Love to all x.’

Fuse ODG himself rejected an offer to take part in the 2014 version of Do They Know It’s Christmas, which featured rewritten lyrics reflecting the Ebola crisis which was affecting countries in West Africa at the time.

He has now written on his Facebook page: ‘Ten years ago today, I said NO to Bob Geldof’s Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas project due to the fact it’s a campaign that dehumanises Africans and destroys our pride and identity in the name of ‘charity’.

‘He has decided to release another version, which demonstrates how much he still has not learned from the points I made clear to him on the negative impact of his project on Africa and its diaspora.

‘The white saviour complex is an incredibly dangerous thing which is now playing out on an individual and corporate level.

‘African problems should be solved by Africans. We welcome anyone genuinely trying to support the continent but it needs to be a spirit of collaboration not patronisation.

‘In 2024, there is no way we’d stay quiet and allow other people to continue to tell our story.’

He also told his Facebook followers: ‘Tag @BBC to stop the release of their documentary celebrating Band Aid…’ 

Fuse ODG insisted on GMB today that he did not want ‘the public to feel guilty for trying to help’, adding: ‘All I’m trying to do is give a different perspective.’

He told presenters Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid: ‘Yes, there was an issue and there were good intentions to raise money to help but my problem is the long term effect of trying to help this crisis. There was one crisis in one country, but it painted a whole image of Africa.

‘It’s the same with Ukraine – there’s one crisis in Ukraine, but imagine the world seeing Europe as a war-stricken place because of one country.’

The 35-year-old musician – real name Nana Richard Abiona – insisted: ‘African problems need to be solved by Africans – it’s not about letting other people sort out our problems.

‘We need to build the next generation of leaders to solve our own problems and that’s why we’ve launched our own educational app, to teach these kids about their history and understand the leaders that have come before them.

‘It’s very important that we are the solution.’

He has said proceeds from his new single We Know It’s Christmas would go towards ‘grassroots innovative projects that aim to better communities across Africa’.

Yet Geldof has hit back at critics and insisted the song had helped keep ‘hundreds of thousands if not millions of people alive’. 

An article published on the website The Conservation said the lyrics of the original release ‘did not paint a full picture of the famine’ in Ethiopia in the 1980s, adding: ‘They recycled many of the old colonial tropes of Africa as a barren land requiring western salvation.

‘In this case the famine was primarily the result of mass migration and destitution caused by a war involving Ethiopia and Tigre and a near total disregard for human life by the combatants.’

The article condemned Band Aid’s influence, saying: ‘Instances of so-called ‘poverty porn’ have also become commonplace across the charity sector as organisations compete with each other for public attention.

‘This describes videos wherein the recipients of charity – against the backdrop of sad violin or piano music – are reduced to mere ‘victims’ rather than full humans looking for agency.’

Geldof described how ‘religious and other traditional ceremonies were abandoned at the time of the Ethiopian famine and more recently in the same areas, adding: ‘These are not ‘colonial tropes’, they are empirical facts.H

He added: ‘Those exhausted women who weren’t raped and killed and their panicked children and any male over 10 who survived the massacres and those 8,000 Tigrayan children will sleep safer, warmer and cared for tonight because of that miraculous little record.

‘We wish that it were other but it isn’t. ‘Colonial tropes’ my a***.’

Fuse ODG and Sheeran are not the only musicians who have distanced themselves from the Band Aid initiative, however.

Popstar Lily Allen was outspoken about her reasons for not taking part when invited to join the 2014 rerecording.

She told the Mail On Sunday at the time: ‘I got an email asking me to do it. It’s difficult to explain why I didn’t do it without sounding like a complete c***.

‘I prefer to do my charitable bit by donating actual money and not being lumped in with a bunch of people like that.

‘It’s like the success club and I’m not really in that club. I don’t think I’m above it all – I’m way below it. But there’s something a bit smug about it.

‘I actually don’t mind Bob. He doesn’t give a f*** and he’s grumpy like me.’

That same year Geldof criticised Adele for appearing to snub calls for her to participate, though a spokesperson for her later said she had decided to show her support with a charity donation.

It was revealed last month that Band Aid would return with a brand new version to mark the charity track’s 40th Anniversary, with what has been called the 2024 Ultimate Mix due for release next Monday alongside a special video.

Do They Know It’s Christmas? has been recorded on three separate occasions – Band Aid (1984), Band Aid 20 (2004) and Band Aid 30 (2014).

To mark this anniversary, producer Trevor Horn has taken the three recordings and blended all the voices of those separate generations into one seamless track.

This means a young Sting will be heard alongside a young Sheeran, a young Boy George with a young Sam Smith, a young George Michael beside a young Harry Styles. 

Also featuring will be a young Bono with an older Bono, Chris Martin with Guy Garvey, the Sugababes and Bananarama, Seal and Sinead O’Connor, Rita Ora and Robbie Williams, Kool and the Gang and Underworld. 

Other stars on the track include Paul McCartney, Sting, John Taylor, Phil Collins, Roger Taylor, Paul Weller, Damon Albarn, Midge Ure, Johnny Greenwood, Gary Kemp and Justin Hawkins.

Yet Blur frontman Albarn has also been among those appearing to criticise the project in the past, having played guitar on the 2004 track but speaking out against the later version 10 years later.

He said in 2014: ‘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 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.’

Midge Ure, who co-wrote the charity single, revealed last year that Sir Bob originally claimed ‘It’s s***, but it’ll do’, when he played him the tune on a toy keyboard. 

The Boomtown Rats frontman, 73, also told Ure he thought it sounded like the theme tune to the 1960s British police TV drama Z-Cars.

Ure, 71, said the pair then went to work on the track that has gone on to raise more than £200million to help fight famine in Africa since its release in 1984.

The Ultravox singer told the How to be 60 podcast they had thought of ‘ridiculous’ ways to come up with money but settled on making music.

He added: ‘We spent two hours trying to think of ridiculous ways of trying to raise some money then finally succumbing to the fact we were rubbish at everything except maybe writing a song.

‘We [thought] if we wrote a Christmas song and got all of our friends involved, we could raise £100,000.

‘Then luckily I had just finished building my studio and sent Bob and cassette of this little thing I did on a toy keyboard. He said, “It’s s***, it sounds like Z-Cars, but it’ll do”.

‘Then he came over to mine with a right-handed guitar upside down because he’s left-handed, hardly any strings on it, and started singing.

‘I said “OK, just leave me”. I recorded them on a cassette and I spent four days playing all the instruments and doing the arrangement for the song while he bludgeoned all our friends to come along and had a strength in name and fanbase which was incredibly important. Then of course the whole thing went mad.’

The single originally released in 1984 topped the charts for five weeks and was that year’s Christmas number one.

It was followed by huge Live Aid star-studded concerts at Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadephia in July 1985. 

MailOnline has approached the BBC as well as representatives of Bob Geldof and Fuse ODG for comment, while a spokesperson for Ed Sheeran said he would not be saying more.