Band Aid 30’s reworked version of ‘Do they know it’s Christmas’. The purpose of the song was to raise money to fight the spread of Ebola in the Africa regions. The song with not a lot of publicity went straight to the top of Britain’s single charts yesterday.

The inspiration was taken from another celebrity song of the same name but different lyrics, which was recorded in 1984 and managed to raise millions of pounds to help fight famine in Africa. Bob Geldof, former lead singer of an Irish band and mastermind behind the original ‘do they know it’s Christmas’ helped with this one as well.

The song sold over 200,000 copies in a week, has become the fastest selling single of the year. Although it has received a lot of criticism from Africans and various other recording artists who say it is patronising and emphases on unhelpful myths of Africa and its problems.

The organisers have however strongly rejected those claims, stating that all it would do is help fight Ebola. And they went on to say that it raised a million pounds within a few minutes of its release.

Pictures : Mathias Muehlbradt