Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ nearly didn’t happen, after a secret trip to Soweto during apartheid

In 1985, Paul Simon’s plans for what would become the landmark album Graceland were put at serious risk during apartheid-era South Africa, according to a New York Post report published Monday. The story describes how Simon, one of the world’s best-known singer-songwriters, was invited to Soweto by South African pop musician Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse and later entered the township under unusually tight concealment.

The report says a car drove into Soweto with Simon as a concealed passenger, with the musician hidden in the back seat. It presents the trip as a rare and high-stakes moment in which Simon’s participation in a project tied to South African music had to be managed amid the restrictions and dangers of apartheid, when Black communities were subjected to extensive state control.

Soweto, a large township outside Johannesburg, had long been a focal point of apartheid enforcement. Against that background, the report frames the concealment as necessary to get Simon into the area long enough to connect with Mabuse and the creative world surrounding the sessions that would later produce Graceland.

The New York Post account emphasizes the near-miss aspect of the episode, portraying it as an incident that could have stopped the Graceland collaboration altogether. Without Simon’s ability to make the trip under those conditions, the report says the famous album’s path would likely have been interrupted or derailed before it reached production.

Graceland, released in 1986, later became one of Paul Simon’s most celebrated records, but the report focuses on how the groundwork for that outcome depended on logistics and personal access during a period of sweeping racial restrictions. By tying Simon’s movement into Soweto to Mabuse’s invitation, the account spotlights how the project relied not only on artistic chemistry but also on navigating apartheid security realities.

The story also adds to a broader understanding of how prominent international artists engaged with South African music during apartheid, often through intermediaries and under conditions that required secrecy. In this case, the concealed entry into Soweto is presented as a practical barrier that nearly prevented the collaboration from moving forward when it mattered most.