Lennox said a group of artists, including K'naan brainstormed about having a "contemporary song that spoke explicitly to Haiti." Tears are Not Enough was a 1985 charity single by Canadian artists. At that point I went on YouTube and looked at Tears Are Not Enough and thought, 'do we recreate that song?'" he said. "What happened was, we were watching the We Are the World in the United States the day after the Grammy awards, and the instinct was 'We want to do something as Canadians,'" Lennox said.Ī version of We Are the World for Haiti was recorded in February in Los Angeles in response to the devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. In an interview Thursday with CBC Radio's Q cultural affairs show, Lennox said the whole effort was pulled together in nine days by a team of artists and producers who contacted a pantheon of Canadian music performers. "When you listen to K'naan's song - and Drake does a rap in the middle which is exceptional - it is absolutely the perfect piece of lyric for this problem," says Randy Lennox, the president and CEO of Universal Music Canada, who helped pull together the charity single.
#WAVING FLAG SONG FOR HAITI DOWNLOAD#
A remixed version of K'naan's anthem Wavin' Flag that will be available for download Thursday at midnight pulls together 57 Canadian artists in a fundraiser for Haiti.Īrtists such as Avril Lavigne, Drake, Sam Roberts and Nelly Furtado rushed to help after a group of artists and record executives launched the initiative in early February.