The World Is A Ghetto War

The World Is A Ghetto Album: The World Is A Ghetto (1972)
by War

War percussionist Papa Dee Allen got the idea for this song. Harold Brown, who was the drummer and a founding member of War, told Songfacts the story: "We were living around Pomona and different parts, San Pedro, Compton, and so on. And we spent a lot of time out around Malibu, and in Hollywood. Well, one day we started realizing that their toilets backed up. Then we started realizing that rich people, people living in some of those big suburbs and stuff, hey, they got their problems, they got broke down cars and stuff. So we started realizing the world is a ghetto. And it's really up to each one of us how we take and work with our environment. We truly believe that everybody can succeed. We believe that it doesn't really matter who you are, where you come from, or your class situation. But we don't look at it upon the way people say it, 'Well, if I don't accumulate a lot of wealth I'm not successful.' Or, 'If I'm not wearing a certain kind of clothes or driving a certain car,' or 'I gotta have a certain kind of house,' that doesn't mean I'm not successful. Well, through that song, what we're really trying to say, you can be successful, as long as you do unto each other as you're supposed to do, be a good neighbor. Get out and do the best you can. Work with each other. Work as a team. That's what we need in America. We don't need all these different factions: I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican, I'm Independent. We are righteous, that's what War stood for. It was trying to bring everybody together through our music. That's why I think our music crossed all the different barriers, why it went into all the different nationalities. Why people accepted it, because it was a hydrogenous type music."
According to War guitarist Howard Scott, the intro of this song was his most unique and notable guitar intro using a Wah Wah pedal.

In the mid-1990s, Far Out Productions (producer and songwriter Jerry Goldstein), won use of the name War in federal court, and original keyboardist Lonnie Jordan began touring under that name. The other four surviving core members formed the Lowrider Band in 2007.

The gangsa rap group Geto Boys recorded a new version of this song for their 1996 album The Resurrection. Their version hit #82 in the US.