We put together this festival, which is still going now. It was in 1980 we started work on it and ’82 was our first event. It’s called WOMAD: World of Music, Arts and Dance. A bunch of us had really started hearing what we thought were incredible artists from other countries around the world that were never going to get on our radio at that time. And we just thought —there was maybe a couple of record stores where you could find their music in London — so we thought, “Let’s get an event together and bring a lot of people from around the world.”
But I think it was — you know, I really worry right now that we’ve got this whole tide moving of politicians in many countries that are becoming elected, trading on fear and hate and division, and racism is underlying that. And the immigrant as the enemy. Whereas it was a very few countries that weren’t built out of and by immigrants. Our history is always moving and flowing.