Under African Skies

The song Under African Skies was born in the post-recording sessions for the album Graceland. Paul Simon traveled with South African musicians to New York to finish the record, three months after the initial recordings in Johannesburg. To convince them to participate, he paid them triple the union rates, as not all of them knew him. Additionally, he offered royalties to those he felt had contributed especially to the compositions. From these same sessions also emerged the lead single, You Can Call Me Al. Linda Ronstadt's participation brought celestial harmonies to Simon's distinctive singing style, according to Cash Box magazine. The track, released as a single, had I Know What I Know as its B-side.

Graceland, Paul Simon's seventh studio album, was released on August 25, 1986. This work, produced by Simon himself and engineered by Roy Halee, fused diverse genres such as pop, rock, a cappella, zydeco, and South African styles like isicathamiya and mbaqanga. After a complicated period in his personal life, including the deterioration of his relationship with Art Garfunkel and the end of his marriage to Carrie Fisher, as well as the commercial failure of his previous album, Hearts and Bones (1983), Simon became fascinated by an mbaqanga tape. He and Halee spent two weeks in Johannesburg recording with local musicians. The arranger for this song was Chikapa “Ray” Phiri, and among the recording engineers are Mark Cobrin and Roy Halee. The single Under African Skies was recorded in April 1986, and its duration is 3:37.