“My boss said, ‘Paul Simon’s in town, and they’re looking for you in the studio. Here’s the money. Take the bus’”: When Bakithi Kumalo got the call to audition for Paul Simon’s 1986 multi-platinum album

American singer-songwriter Paul Simon of folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel posed with four musicians, all holding gold discs of Paul Simon's album Graceland, on which they contributed, London, 1987. .

There’s a moment in Joe Berlinger’s 2012 documentary Under African Skies that gets right to the bottom of Paul Simon's game-changing 1986 hit Graceland.

We learn that the album's music showed the world a different side of apartheid-torn South Africa, that Simon's arrival was politically complicated, and that the combination of his vision, the studio musicians' talent, and engineer Roy Halee's editing prowess created a synthesis previously unheard in American music.