He enlisted fundraiser Ken Kragen to help bring the vision to reality. Soon after the UK-based group Band Aid released ' Do They Know It's Christmas?' in December 1984, the musician and activist Harry Belafonte began to think about an American benefit single for African famine relief. With sales in excess of 20 million copies, it is the eighth- best-selling physical single of all time. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian for the album We Are the World. ' We Are the World' is a charity single originally recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. For other uses, see We Are the World (disambiguation). This article is about the original 1985 charity song.
