That was one of the answers that you gave last night - that celebrity doesn't matter and it's so fleeting. But the irony to me is without the celebrity maybe there wouldn't be an audience for it. If you had just done this with musicians who were accomplished but didn't have a name for themselves - especially in the Western world - no one would want to see or hear it. Like Baaba Maal -

Duncan: Oh, yeah, and Dennis Hopper and Michael Stipe -

Yeah, and it builds and builds and builds, so without that pull, the ironic thing is that you need the celebrity.

Jamie: You work within the machine you've got. Someone else once asked us, "How can you have these things about how big corporate companies are doing what they're doing and still have your stuff on MTV?" You've gotta work within the machine that exists, you know what I mean? If you wanna be powerful in politics you've got to get into one of the political parties that you might not agree with, get as high up in it as you can and then make some changes. We can't just…. If we were total purists and were never going to be on MTV and have no celebrities in our project, you'd say, "Okay, very nice - well, you can enjoy the 25 people who will enjoy your product, and now we're gonna go watch the Backstreet Boys."

And how would you ever get it to anyone, even those 25 people - no one would ever pick it up or distribute it!

Duncan: Exactly. And I think that was the gift of the project, this feeling that the project was already done and finished before we got involved and we had just been the facilitators of it. But it needed celebrities, otherwise, as you say, 25 people would've heard it.

Now, the way that you explain it had been done was that you were working on this music together first, and you had "stolen", to use your own word, pieces from other musicians. So did you initially go out just to find those particular musicians and get something new from them?

Jamie: Initially. And there were a few others that we hadn't stolen from that we wanted to do something with, like Michael Stipe. But essentially the bulk of it was getting rid of all the samples. Little did we know that that was going to become like 5% of it and that we were going to be submerged under a deluge of the most incredible, unforeseen talent of famous people and not famous people, African, Indian...brilliant! We bit off more than we could
chew - be careful what you wish for! (Grins)

So aside from the 5% that was scheduled or planned, everything else was what occurred on the spot?

Jamie: Stuff like, "Oh, you must see my cousin, he plays drums!" Just people bowling up to the hotel, like the African Show Boys and whatnot.

Totally new pieces not based on what you'd had before?

Duncan: No, no, we kept the themes of the film and the tracks on the album remained more or less -

Jamie: We overdubbed, put more stuff on them.

Ah, so you added layers.

Duncan: Yeah - that was the flexibility that we had. If we met someone and we got a vibe with them, we'd then get the laptop out and play a couple of tunes until they started grooving on one tune and say, "Okay, this is the one." We put the headphones on, plugged the mic in and you're away!

And you were able to find something with everybody, something to fit into the tracks or DVD?

Duncan: No, no…we had a few, quite a few things that didn't make it through, but that was often…. I mean, when you're in Africa or India and you're dealing with people who don't really know what's going on, you know, the whole concept of a laptop.... We had some funny experiences where you talk to someone and you think you've made a real great connection with them, explained to them what it's all about -

Jamie: And they totally have no idea.

Duncan: You put the headphones on and they start playing as if the music isn't there at all, paying no attention at all, and you go, "Oh, well!" (Laughs) Or, you discuss exactly conceptually what you're doing and then they just play or sing something completely different, which is often much better than what you were discussing!

Yeah, they've taken off from the starting point you gave them.

Jamie: Exactly.