“People get really fed up with musicians preaching at them all the time.” Nonetheless, he admits, “You have opportunities that I think would be wrong to ignore.” Gabriel is a co-founder, with Richard Branson, of The Elders, a human rights organization designed to “link young people through technology” to statesmen such as Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter and create what Gabriel calls “a pincer movement on those in power.”
In March, The Elders’ chair, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was given an award by the Skoll Foundation in Oxford and asked Gabriel if he would sing his 1980 song “Biko” for the ceremony. “We thought we’d try for a small string group and [Senegalese singer] Baaba Maal joining in.” The stripped-down arrangement (sans Maal) made its way onto “New Blood.” (via Peter Gabriel: The past is the future – Music – Salon.com)