For 30 years, the Red Hot Organisation has been fighting AIDS through music and culture projects

Where did the initial idea to raise funds and awareness for the HIV/AIDS crisis via music come from?

Living in New York and participating in the East Village art scene during the 1980s made the impact of HIV/AIDS unavoidable. So many friends and people I admired got sick. The idea of doing a Cole Porter tribute album popped into my head as a way to do something positive during those terrible times. I got my friend and co-founder of Red Hot, Leigh Blake, to join in and we spent a year or so getting the project together, against all odds.

Where are the compilation proceeds donated and how do you decide where to donate them?

Red Hot’s primary charitable mission is to raise awareness, so a lot of our work is using pop culture for social change. But we have also raised and donated millions of dollars over the years. Each project has a different beneficiary. In the beginning we gave a lot of money to organisations in different countries based on proportional album sales, so a lot went to Canada, for example, where sales were solid, and less in Japan. But the most impactful grant in that era was to ACT UP and the spin-off Treatment Action Group (TAG). We were the only outside organisations to give ACT UP money, almost a million dollars in the early 1990s, and we gave TAG a $100,000 grant which helped them set up the company and do their crucial early work advocating for the drugs to come to market that allow people to live with HIV. Often, starting with No Alternative, we ask the artists whom they would like to donate to and give grants in their name. Over time we followed the trajectory of the pandemic to different areas of impact, such as Latin America and Africa.

Looking back to when you launched RHO, were there any other initiatives in the music industry devoted to tackling the crisis?

Sadly, there wasn’t much when we started. There was a multi-artist single, That’s What Friends Are For, but Red Hot was the first major organised effort in the music and media business to address AIDS and the stigma suffered by LGBTQ communities.

How easy was it to get artists and musicians involved in the project?

It’s always hard to get artists involved in non-profit projects, and even harder to get their managers and labels to agree. We’re eternally grateful to David Byrne who was the first artist to say yes. Without that none of it would have happened. And to George Michael who donated the song Too Funky after seeing the success of Red Hot + Blue. That put Red Hot into orbit and allowed us to continue the good fight for 30-plus years.

What was the public response to Red Hot + Blue at the time?

The response to Red Hot + Blue was amazing. Beyond our wildest dreams. It came at a time when people wanted something to focus on and understand the HIV pandemic. And it was cool and fun in spite of the dark context. Over the years we’ve been gratified that people remember the project fondly and how much impact it had on society. It was the first major HIV/AIDS benefit, the first major tribute album and a landmark in bringing LGBTQ+ rights into the mainstream.

How do you approach the curation for your benefit series? 

Great choice of word. Red Hot has been a curatorial process from the beginning. My background was curating art shows in the 1980s so I’ve always applied that approach. But it’s much greater than me – every project owes its success to many different collaborators and artists. Rather than a ‘house style’, we’ve been able to make projects within the cultures and audiences that we are interested in, from a music and activist perspective. For example, we’ve done three Brazilian-inspired albums, led by longtime Red Hot contributor Beco Dranoff. Beco is Brazilian and made the work authentic and global at the same time.

Are there any other styles or regions that you’d like to explore, musically?

The one area I’ve most wanted to make a project around is salsa music. I grew up in New York and it’s something I love. Not to mention, we need to bring more attention to the great culture of people of Carribean descent in New York, London and around the world. Willie Colón, if you’re out there, we need to do something to pay tribute to your genius and how salsa music conquered the world in the same way as hip-hop and punk – all things that grew out of marginal communities in New York in the 1970s.

What sparked the idea to reissue the compilation for its 30th birthday?

Two things: getting the album on streaming platforms for the first time, and showing the parallels between the HIV and COVID pandemics. 

Do you hope to reach new audiences with the reissue?

We hope to reach a new audience, but also reconnect with the old one. At the same time we’re releasing a lot of new music, particularly in 2021, to reach a younger audience.

How has Covid-19 had an impact on the organisation?

Covid has affected everything. We no longer have a space at WeWork to meet each other and potential collaborators. Like everyone, we meet on Zoom and try to remember what it was like to have social interactions that fuelled creative ideas. But, at the same time, we’re very lucky to have virtually no overhead, as well as a grant from the Open Society to do a series of grassroots events. They kindly turned it into a general purpose grant when the pandemic hit.

You mentioned the parallels between the Covid-19 pandemic and the HIV/AIDS crisis. Could you elaborate?

The parallels between Covid and HIV are acute as they are both viral pandemics that disproportionately impact communities of colour and disadvantaged people. Not to mention there is a striking parallel between getting people to use condoms in the 1990s and wearing masks today. I think young activists have a great deal to learn from what AIDS activists did 30 years ago.