25 years ago, on January 28, 1985, more than 45 of America’s best musicians went to a recording studio after the American Music Awards ceremony to record together, under the name “USA for Africa”, one of the most famous humanitarian anthems ever, “We Are The World”.

The song, penned by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and produced by Quincy Jones, became the biggest selling single of all time and raised more than $63 million, which allowed USA for Africa to support more than 500 projects and help millions of people in 18 countries in Africa.

Tonight after the Grammy Awards ceremony, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of “We Are The World” and to help the earthquake relief efforts in Haiti, many singers will join together to record a new version of the song, once again conducted by Quincy Jones, who will of course request everyone to “check [their] egos at the door”.

But tonight, it is also our turn to celebrate a song that inspired so many other artists around the world to follow USA for Africa’s example and to get together and sing for the world. This song allowed singers to see they can use their art to make a difference and allowed us to see we can achieve great things for the world when many people join for a cause. It became a natural thing for us to buy a charity song or to go to a relief concert, but it all started with groups like Baid Aid and USA for Africa and it all started with people like Michael Jackson.

Many of us spent the past decades relying on Michael to heal the world instead of trying to do it by ourselves. And tonight, it is time we pay attention to what Michael wrote in the song “We Are The World”:

“We can’t go on pretending day by day

That someone, somewhere will soon make a change”

This is why I came up with the idea that we can also get together, all around the world, and record our own version of “We Are The World”. We’ll show the world that we don’t need to be famous and we don’t need to rely on famous singers to use music to make a change and save lives. This might be a crazy idea, but we already showed the world that when Michael Jackson fans get together, they can raise thousands of dollars for a cause, as we did for Haiti thanks to “Team Michael”!

“Team Michael” already helped save hundreds of children in Haiti, but just imagine how many more children we could help if we used this song to raise awareness around the world. Imagine if your voice could save a life.

Today, I’m calling all the singers and musicians out there, no matter how old you are or where you’re from, no matter if you’re a Michael Jackson fan or not, no matter if you love to sing alone in your room or you’re part of a band or a choir at school, church or in any other organization, no matter if you’re an accomplished singer or not… you can help!

Are you ready? Grab a mic, shoot a video of you or your group or choir singing “We Are The World” and send it to Make That Change! We will then edit all videos together to create a unique music video of all your performances and publish it on YouTube and everywhere else! The video will be used to help us raise more funds for Haiti and will hopefully inspire millions of people around the world.

Let’s show the world what “We Are The World” really means, let’s show them that people around the world can get together and sing one song.

If you want to join the project and be part of United for Haiti, please read carefully what’s following.

Read more