PLAYING FOR CHANGE is thrilled to announce that our first two Songs Around the World "Stand By Me" and "Don't Worry" are now available on iTunes!

Click HERE to purchase the songs now!! A portion of the sales of these downloads goes to the Playing For Change Foundation, building and supporting music and arts schools around the world.

WE ARE SO EXCITED TO MAKE THIS AVAILABLE TO YOU- OUR COMMUNITY- AND THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!

One Love, the Playing For Change Family

My latest book, What Matters, contains 18 long-term photo essays about essential issues of our time by some of the great photojournalists of this generation. . .I created this book because I believe in my heart that one great photograph can change the world. And if I can show 250 great photographs about the crucial issues of our time to enough people, then maybe one of those people, or maybe a few people, or, maybe even many of those people will connect with an image. And when one great image resonates with one talented and dedicated person, and that person digs deeper, learns more and takes some action that creates positive change in the world, then What Matters can be considered a useful exercise. I can't predict who that person will be or which of the 250 images in What Matters will resonate, or what action that person will take, but I completely believe it will happen.

The proof of that distilled theory came very quickly, and not how I expected. Two months after What Matters was published, a friend e-mailed me a link to a Bill Moyers interview with someone I never heard of, a musician named Mark Johnson. (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10242008/watch3.html) Turns out, Mark had done some amazing things. He created a documentary film called "Playing for Change" in which musicians from all over the world – New Orleans, Italy, the Congo, South Africa – all played the same songs, and Mark mixed their distinctive musical styles together to create beautifully affecting medleys. More concretely, Mark also built a music school for kids in a poor township near Capetown, South Africa, a community center that brightens these kids' otherwise difficult lives. And that first school was such a success that he is now building similar schools all over the world. At one point in the interview, Bill Moyers asks Mark Johnson why he decided to do all of this good work. Here's Mark's answer, which I've shortened a bit:

Many years back, my brother [gave] me a Christmas gift… a photo book called A Day in the Life of Africa. And in that book was one photograph… and the caption was something along the lines of, "One of the more dangerous townships in South Africa finds solace through backyard jazz." And I had this picture on my wall for years. And it served as a symbol for me and for the crew that I [was] traveling with.

I did some research. And I found out that the bandleader was the upright bass player named Pokei Klaas. When we traveled down to Cape Town, South Africa, we heard this music down the street. So the crew and I walked over to hear their music. And when the song was over, we asked Joe Peterson, who was the singer in the band, "Have you ever heard of Pokei?"

And he said, "Oh, yeah, Pokei. He's my best friend. I'll take you to see Pokei."

So the next day, we all got in a van and we drove out to Guguletu township. We passed thousands of shacks and [it was] an incredibly humbling experience. I remember there were a number of little homes, and a lot of sorrow because there was a lot of HIV in the area. A lot of poverty.

So we decided, okay, we'll put on a little concert in the backyard because the people here need something to celebrate.

And I have never in my life seen something more beautiful when the people came out of their little homes and just started dancing and celebrating this music. And all the sorrow was gone, and they were now filled with all this joy and connection to us and to each other. So we asked Pokei, "Well, what can we do to give back to your community?

And Pokei said, you know, "The kids here, they really need a music school. They need some hope. They need something that can give them some inspiration." And so just a couple months ago we went down there with some shovels and we built the first Playing for Change music school in that exact spot. In the backyard. And now it's a chance for kids to get together, to have something positive to look forward to. And what we're doing with this foundation is we're going to build hundreds of schools around the world.

So there it was – proof of concept. One person, Mark Johnson, connected with one photo shot by a black South African photographer named Fanie Jason in a book, A Day in the Life of Africa, that I created six years earlier. That photo hung on his wall for years, and eventually it inspired him to build music schools for disadvantaged children around the world.

So, like I said, I don't know which photograph in What Matters will connect with which talented, dedicated person like Mark Johnson, but it will happen, I promise, because I know in my heart that one photograph can change the world.

sartorias

Wanting a movie to end so you can run out and buy the soundtrack may not seem like huge endorsement, but in this case, it is. "Playing for Change: Peace Through Music," a pan-global survey -- and marriage -- of varying styles of world music, is often so exhilarating, its neo-hippie utopianism doesn't seem so implausible. Starting on the pedestrian mall in Santa Monica, Calif., helmers Mark Johnson (who narrates) and Jonathan Walls made a recording of street singer Roger Ridley performing "Stand by Me" then took that tape all over the world. They added singers in New Orleans and Amsterdam, a guitarist in France, a Congolese drummer, some Zuni drummers in New Mexico, making musical collaborators out of people who'd never met. As movie openings go, the "Stand By Me" overture is the musical equivalent of the tracking shot that opens "Touch of Evil."

And that's just the beginning. Music "expresses what you are trying to say without words," says one musician and, predictably, "Playing for Change" is most eloquent when the music does the talking.

Long-range partnerships are being formed: A singer sings in Buenos Aires, and his female backup trio, the Oneness Choir, is in India. Rajhesh Vaidhya, who plays the ancient veena, turns the sitar-like instrument into a melodious funk machine. Israeli singer Tula is followed by South African guitarist/singer Vusi Mahlasela, followed by Tibetan group the Exile Brothers. Significantly, a lot of the musicians are not seen playing in their own homelands -- sometimes by choice, sometimes by the choices of others.

Among its virtues, "Playing for Change" is a great showcase for just what incredible, thoroughly accessible popular music is being made worldwide and, regardless of this movie's efforts, is already highly homogeneous and cross-influenced. In turn, the doc is also an indictment of the American music industry and of format radio, which might look toward "Playing for Change" for a way to avoid irrelevance and obsolescence.

The Playing For Change Foundation (PFCF) is dedicated to connecting the world through music by providing resources (including but not limited to facilities, supplies, and educational programs) to musicians and their communities around the world. PFCF supports projects inspired by the communities featured in the Playing for Change documentary film series.

brotherhood2

WorldSuck, as far as John and Hank can tell, is actually somewhat difficult to define. But it’s clear that some things increase WorldSuck, while other things decrease WorldSuck.

Malaria, for example, increases WorldSuck. While corndogs definitely decrease WorldSuck.

As part of the Brotherhood 2.0 project, Hank and John Green have decided to create the Brotherhood 2.0 Foundation for Decreasing Suck Levels Worldwide (also known as the Foundation to Decrease WorldSuck (FDW))