By Spoiler alert: They do. Africans can read a calendar even when there's a famine. The song—intended as a charity anthem but delivered with all the grace of a bulldozer—has turned into that earworm that keeps coming back every December, like a weed you can't kill.
Forty years later, it’s almost impossible to ignore how Do They Know It’s Christmas perfectly captures the perils of good intentions gone horribly wrong. Beneath its sheen of charity lies a tired, reductive narrative about Africa: a place painted as a never-ending scene of drought, despair, and deficiency. The lyrics ooze colonial condescension.
“No rain or rivers flow,” they belt out, as if the entire continent is a barren desert. And let’s not forget Bono’s famous line, “Thank God it’s them instead of you,” which, to his credit, he reportedly didn’t want to sing. The (then) young Irishman could sense the line implied that the lives of others are somehow less worthy.
The whole production is a hot mess of erasure. Black artists like J.T. Taylor from Kool & the Gang and Jody Watley were allowed to sing in the back of the vocal bus while white male voices took center stage. Africans weren’t even allowed a seat at the table, let alone a mic.
Let’s be real—this song is both a throwback to the 1980s charity single craze or an annual reminder of Western paternalism dressed up in tinsel. With its gem of a line, “there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime”—because, obviously, the entire continent has one universal weather forecast—Do They Know It’s Christmas? plays right into the “Africa is a country” myth.
{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhCmpBPGLzU}
For those of us in the Black diaspora, it’s been a lot more personal. Growing up, I swallowed the lies about Africa being nothing but a desolate wasteland—a place of endless suffering that even Santa Claus would skip. It took years, and thousands of kilometers travelled, to unlearn the nonsense this song (and many other pop culture references) was feeding me.
When I finally made my way to Africa—spending six months in five West African countries that are on my DNA Ancestry—I found something this song could never capture: a cultural richness that defies every stereotype. And guess what? Africans do know it’s Christmas. Just like those of us on the other side of the Middle Passage, many were forced to adopt Christianity during colonization.
Maybe the real question should be: Do they know when Africans celebrate their own holy days? How about Vodun Day on January 10th in Benin Republic, where they honour their ancient spiritual heritage with colourful ceremonies?
Overlooking Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Photo: Rachel Décoste
To its credit, Do They Know It’s Christmas raised millions for the Ethiopian famine relief and inspired Harry Belafonte to conceptualize the African-American-led iteration which became We Are the World. No one’s denying that its financial and symbolic impact was huge. But, after four decades, it’s time to let this relic of a charity single history go.
In the final month of the United Nations' Decade for People of African Descent, it’s high time we retire Do They Know It’s Christmas from our holiday playlists. Let’s finally start listening to the stories Africans have been trying to tell about themselves. Their voices have been obstructed for far too long.
And if you’re curious about The Jollof Journey, my upcoming memoir about reconnecting with my roots, visit www.JollofJourney.com.
