Tracy Chapman's Mandela Breakthrough
Share
A story about how Tracy Chapman got her big break when Stevie Wonder had technical difficulties at Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday concert.
"Tracy Chapman was on the prelims, the undercard of the undercard, before the TV stuff even turns on. She played 2-3 songs early in the day. Later, Stevie Wonder was supposed to go on and perform, but they messed up his backing tracks and he couldn't go on.
They needed somebody to fill 6 minutes of time before the next act and give them time to fix this. They needed someone who could play with no backing tracks and just go on acoustic. They asked Tracy if she would go on and play a song with just her and her guitar, nothing else.
She went out there and played Fast Car. Her voice was quaking at the beginning - no auto-tune, no vocals, no backtrack, so you could hear every imperfection. But then she came into her own, sang the song, and people went nuts for it. That's how she got her break.
Her first album went on to sell 10 million copies, which was insane. You can still see this video on YouTube."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.