Trumpeter, flugelhorn-player, singer, composer and activist Hugh Ramapolo Masekela has passed away last year after a long battle with prostate cancer.



When he cancelled his appearance in 2017 at the Johannesburg Joy of Jazz Festival, taking time out to deal with his serious health issues, fans were forced to return to his recorded opus for reminders of his unique work. Listening through that half-century of disks, the nature and scope of the trumpeter’s achievement becomes clear.



Masekela had two early horn heroes.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="594" height="380" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-141835647-594x594.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-40054" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-141835647-594x594.jpg 594w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-141835647-594x594-300x192.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px" /><figcaption>SOUTH AFRICA -DECEMBER 28 : Legendary South African singer Miriam Makeba with fellow musician and ex-husband Hugh Masekela. (Photo by Gallo Images/ Avusa)</figcaption></figure>



The first was part-mythical: the life of jazz great&nbsp;Bix Biederbecke&nbsp;filtered through Kirk Douglas’s acting and Harry James’s trumpet, in the 1950 movie&nbsp;“Young Man With A Horn”. Masekela saw the film as a schoolboy at the Harlem Bioscope in Johannesburg’s Sophiatown. The erstwhile chorister resolved “then and there to become a trumpet player”.



The second horn hero, unsurprisingly, was&nbsp;Miles Davis. And while Masekela’s accessible, storytelling style and lyrical instrumental tone are very different, he shared one important characteristic with the American: his life and music were marked by constant reinvention. As Davis reportedly said:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">I don’t want to be yesterday’s guy.</blockquote>



Much has already been written about Masekela’s life and its landmarks: playing in the Huddleston Jazz Band in the 1950s on a horn donated by Louis Armstrong; performing in the musical&nbsp;“King Kong”&nbsp;in the 1960s and at the Guildhall and then Manhattan schools of music with singer&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-makeba">Miriam Makeba</a>; US pop successes in the 1970s and then touring Paul Simon’s&nbsp;“Graceland”&nbsp;in the 80s and 90s.



What is less discussed is the&nbsp;music, and the innovative imagination he has periodically applied to draw it fresh from the flames.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Breaking new ground</h4>



The Huddleston band, plus time as sideman and in stage shows, were the traditional career path for a young musician. But then Masekela broke his first new ground. With fellow originals, including saxophonist&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/kippie-jeremiah-moeketsi">Kippie Moeketsi</a>, pianist&nbsp;<a href="https://abdullahibrahim.co.za/">Abdullah Ibrahim</a>&nbsp;and trombonist&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jonas-mosa-gwangwa">Jonas Gwangwa</a>, as&nbsp;The Jazz Epistles&nbsp;they cut the first LP of modern African jazz in South Africa.



“Jazz Epistle: Verse One”&nbsp;(1960) featured band compositions marked by challenging improvisation – “a cross between mbaqanga and bebop”.&nbsp;Mbaqanga&nbsp;is form of South African township jive and&nbsp;bebop&nbsp;an American jazz style developed in the 1940s.



Masekela had also joined the pit band and worked as a copyist for South Africa’s first black musical, “King Kong”.



This exposure attracted attention to his talent from potential patrons at home and abroad. Pushed by the horrors of the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville massacre</a>when the South African police shot and killed 69 people on 21 March 1960, and pulled by donated air-tickets and scholarships, Masekela left for London, and then New York.



In the next two decades, Masekela’s re-visioning of his music took many forms. He found America hard, but with wife Miriam Makeba (the marriage lasted from 1964 &#8211; 1966), the production skills of Gwangwa, and the support of American singer&nbsp;Harry Belafonte&nbsp;he proactively introduced audiences to South African music and the destruction of apartheid.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="925" height="612" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Hugh.png" alt="" class="wp-image-40056" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Hugh.png 925w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Hugh-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Hugh-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Hugh-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 925px) 100vw, 925px" /><figcaption> Jazz legend Dorothy Masuka, who died on 23 February 2019 attends Hugh Masekela&#8217;s memorial service. At the back is Sibongile Khumalo. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure>



On the ironically titled 1966 live&nbsp;“Americanisation of Ooga Booga”, he demonstrated the creative possibilities of “township bop”. Masekela did this by mashing up repertoire and playing styles from the South Africa he had left and the America he had landed in.



But he was also looking in other directions: in collaborations with other African musicians; towards fusion (with&nbsp;The Crusaders), rock (with&nbsp;The Byrds) and even pop at the&nbsp;Monterey Pop, festival.



That list captures only a fraction of his projects in the 1960s. Some bore instant fruit: his 1968 single,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=8369">“Grazin’ In the Grass”</a>, topped the Billboard Hot 100 list and sold four million copies; the previous year’s “Up Up and Away” became an instant standard.



In 1971, he teamed up with Gwangwa and Caiphus Semenya for another pan-African vision:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/hugh-masekela-the-union-of-south-africa-mw0000625550">The Union of South Africa</a>. In 1972 he explored a stronger jazz orientation on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/home-is-where-the-music-is-mw0000789812">“Home is Where The Music Is”</a>&nbsp;with, among others, sax player&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dudu-pukwana-mn0000210863/biography">Dudu Pukwana</a>, bassist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eddie-gomez-mn0000794244">Eddie Gomez</a>, keyboardist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/larry-willis-mn0000114935/biography">Larry Willis</a>&nbsp;and Semenya.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Sixties counterculture</h4>



But as the title of “Grazin’ In the Grass” suggests, Masekela was also bewitched by other aspects of Sixties counterculture. He dated his addiction back to the alcohol-focused social climate of his early playing years in South Africa, but by the early Seventies he admitted:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">I had destroyed my life with drugs and alcohol and could not get a gig or a band together. No recording company was interested in me…</blockquote>



That depression inspired the song that achieved genuinely iconic status back home in South Africa: the 1974 reflection on migrant labour,&nbsp;“Stimela/Coal Train”.



Foreign critics have handed that status to other Masekela songs, such as “Soweto Blues”, “Gold” or the much later “Bring Him Back Home”. Yet powerful though those are, it is Stimela, with its slow-burning steam-piston rhythm that captured the hearts of South Africans in struggle back home, and still does today. And of course the lyrics:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">There’s a train that comes from Namibia and Malawi /there’s a train that comes from Zambia and Zimbabwe/ from Angola and Mozambique…</blockquote>



Masekela said:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">For me songs come like a tidal wave … At this low point, for some reason, the tidal wave that whooshed in on me came all the way from the other side of the Atlantic: from Africa; from home.</blockquote>



Shortly afterwards, Masekela headed off to Ghana, hooked up with&nbsp;Hedzoleh Soundz, and was soon back in the charts. “Stimela” received its first outing on the album&nbsp;“I Am Not Afraid”, with West African and American co-players including pianist&nbsp;Joe Sample.



By the mid ‘80s, the hornman was back in southern Africa, recording&nbsp;“Technobush”&nbsp;at the mobile&nbsp;Shifty Studio&nbsp;in Botswana, and performing for the Medu Arts Ensemble with a Botswanan/South African band,&nbsp;Kalahari. His music shifted again: roots mbaqanga came strongly to the fore to speak simply and directly to people now openly battling the apartheid regime just across the border.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Returning home</h4>



After liberation and his return home, Masekela once more chose fresh directions. In 1997 he banished his addictions and began to showcase the virtuoso player he could have been 30 years earlier without the distractions of the West Coast. He fronted big European jazz bands, and benchmarked a long musical friendship with Larry Willis with the magisterial&nbsp;Friends.



But his shrewd ear for the music of today, rather than yesterday, also took him into younger company. He collaborated with current stars – including singer&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thandiswa.com/">Thandiswa Mazwai</a>&nbsp;– often encouraging them to take centre stage. Just before the recurrence of his cancer, he was&nbsp;planning&nbsp;a festival collaboration with rapper Riky Rick.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="475" height="594" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-99309818-594x594.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-40055" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-99309818-594x594.jpg 475w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-99309818-594x594-300x375.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-99309818-594x594-240x300.jpg 240w" sizes="(max-width: 475px) 100vw, 475px" /><figcaption>NEW YORK &#8211; AUGUST 20: South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela poses for a portrait on August 20, 1968 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



To cap the transformation, the individualistic rebel of the 60s and 70s became an elder statesman of social activism. In 2001, he established a&nbsp;foundation&nbsp;to help other musicians escape addiction. Once more he foregrounded the music of continental Africa, to campaign against xenophobia. And the return of his own illness became the cue to&nbsp;exhortother men to get checked for prostate cancer.



Other South African musicians have succeeded overseas; many have made one mid-career image switch – but few have shown us, in only one person but more than 30 albums, so many of the faces and possibilities of South African jazz.



Hugh Masekela, musician, activist. Born: 4 April 1939; Died: 23 January 2018



-Gwen Ansell; Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria



-The Conversation



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Remembering Hugh Masekela: the horn player with a shrewd ear for music of the day

Musician&nbsp;Oliver Mtukudzi, who died at the age of 66, was a great cultural ambassador for Zimbabwe. Known to his fans as Tuku, he was a cultural icon for the southern African country. His aura and presence had a global resonance with fans around the world, yet the man remained humble and magnanimous.



I once boasted to some international colleagues that he was Zimbabwe’s gift to the world. But on closer scrutiny, he was the perfect gift for Zimbabweans especially during their&nbsp;tumultuous times.



Mtukudzi died in Harare after a long battle with diabetes, ironically enough on exactly the same day as his friend, the musician&nbsp;Hugh Masekela, who passed away on 23 January 2018.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/arts/2019/01/23/zimbabwes-oliver-mtukudzi-dies-at-66/">Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi Dies At 66</a>



He was also a businessperson, activist, philanthropist and a goodwill ambassador for Unicef in the southern African region. But it was his innovative music that made him deeply loved. Dubbed “Tuku music”, it was a&nbsp;blend&nbsp;of southern African music traditions, including mbira, mbaqanga, jit and the traditional drumming styles of the Korekore.



Tuku released his debut single in 1975. As a solo artist, Mtukudzi had his first successes shortly after Zimbabwe declared its independence in 1980. His debut solo album, Africa. The prolific Mtukudzi released his 67th album in 2018 –&nbsp;Hanya’Ga (Concern), saying it was “meant to share a message of introspecting and I’m hoping people learn a thing or two from it”.



Celebrated as “the man with the talking guitar”, Mtukudzi&nbsp;learned&nbsp;by experimenting: I looked for a sound the guitar couldn’t make in a guitar – that is how I learned to play the guitar. Professional guitarist at the time use to laugh at me. I used to look for a mbira (music instrument) on the guitar strings. I’ve always been experimental. But it was a blessing in disguise because I went on to pioneer a sound that was later labelled Tuku music.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">A wide canvas</h4>



But Mtukudzi was more than just a popular singer. In his song “Todii” (What shall we do?), Mtukudzi reflects on the challenge faced by communities as a result of the scourge of HIV/AIDS. The song gives cadence and sympathy to those who provide care. At the same time it magnifies how despicable those in positions of authority are for violating their responsibility.



He ends the song with a solemn appeal for help and for ideas in view of this challenge. This is Mtukudzi, the social activist.



In another song “Mabasa” (The works) Mtukudzi paints a dire picture of how young people are the first to die, leaving the elderly to fend for themselves. For me this song attests to Mtukudzi reminding us all to be cognisant about how we live.



Mtukudzi also acknowledged the existence of deity and spoke against the attribution of success to luck or happenstance as he did in the song “Raki” (luck).



Conversely, in “Ndagarwa nhaka” (Inheriting) he brought attention to a Shona cultural practice of a widow being married off to the late husband’s elder or young brother. In this song Mtukudzi, using the voice of the widow, appears to praise the status quo as enabling the widow to get solace and protection given her loss.



A stark contrast, though, is found in the movie “Neria”. Mtukudzi crafted the soundtrack detailing the tribulations of a widow trying to survive past patriarchy in all its forms.



In the song “Dzoka uyamwe” (come and suckle) Mtukudzi bemoans the experiences of a person suffering prejudice based on how they look. Given this sad experience, the mother urges her child to come back home and suckle. The song then becomes philosophically charged, reminding us all that the core of all prejudice emanates from the mind and the heart. This theme of a concerned parent appears to reverberate in the song “Chengetai” meaning “to keep”.



This time, a role reversal: children are being urged to take care of their parents.



Some of Mtukudzi’s songs were sources of contention and deemed anti-establishment. For instance “Wasakara” (You are old) was interpreted by some as a reference to former President Robert Mugabe, given that a character in the song was in denial of age creeping up on them. In later years as a consultant, I would use the song in driving home the importance of succession planning for effectual and efficient organisations.



Mtukudzi also continues to give the same admonition to the elderly in the song “Mkuru mkuru” (the elderly leader).



Mtukudzi would also pen “Mutserendende” (the slide) and draw comparisons between two generations. From the first generation, Mtukudzi idolises how life was easy and pleasurable for children, a stark contrast to his generation’s life of toil and hardship in climbing the mountain. The solace, as argued by the song, is continued perseverance and determination.



In “Magumo” (the end), Mtukudzi raises some poignant life lessons on the importance of ideals such as humility. The most important question we should ask in everything we do, Mtukudzi argues, is: what will be the end of this that I am doing?



In the song “Kunze kwadoka” (the sun has set, it’s dark), Mtukudzi presents the questioning parent and the precarious situation of a child who has stayed out on a date for a long time. Giving advice to the boyfriend, “perekedza mwanasikana, perekedza bhebhi iro zuva ravira kunze kwadoka” translated “accompany the girl, accompany that babe the sun has set, it’s dark out”.



Now the sun has set on Oliver Mtukudzi. He leaves the world his greatest prized possession, the gift of song. Thank you, maestro par excellence.- The Conversation



-Willie Chinyamurindi: Associate Professor, University of Fort Hare



-Chinyamurindi is an avid narrative researcher. This piece was written using Oliver Mtukudzi’s Greatest Hits album – The Tuku Years (1998-2002).



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Geoffrey Kent’s Book Launch Celebrating: “Safari: A Memoir Of A Worldwide Travel Pioneer”

Tribute To Oliver Mtukudzi – Zimbabwe’s ‘Man With The Talking Guitar’

Legendary African jazz musician Hugh Masekela has died at the age of 78.
&#8220;After a protracted and courageous battle with prostate cancer, he passed peacefully in Johannesburg, South Africa, surrounded by his family,&#8221; read a statement released by his family.
He had been battling cancer since 2008.
Masekela used his music as a political tool, often against apartheid in South Africa, with songs such as Stimela, Soweto Blues and Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela). 
Masekela first started playing the piano when he was five years old.
&#8220;I didn&#8217;t go into it for notoriety or fame. I just went into music because I love it,&#8221; he told FORBES LIFE AFRICA, when he was on the cover in 2014.
At the age of 14, he was given his first trumpet by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the late British anti-apartheid activist. Hugh began to develop his signature sound in the late 1950s, melding jazz with African influences.
His first album, Trumpet Africaine, was released in 1963. He went on to release more than 40 albums and performed with Dizzy Gillespie, The Byrds, Fela Kuti, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and Miriam Makeba.
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&nbsp;

Legendary Hugh Masekela Has Died

Away from a baying crowd of women with weaves, Hugh Masekela swaggers into a television studio on Fox Street in Johannesburg for a talk show. Earlier that day, he was on a talk radio station fielding questions on his disdain for synthetic hair and the popularity of weaves among African women. His remarks, and his refusal to pose with fans with synthetic hair, attracted the ire of women across South Africa.
“If he’s okay with weaved women paying money to come see his concerts then he should afford those fans the privilege of taking pictures with him,” SABC radio personality KG Moeketsi posted on Facebook.
“This thing is tired and unnecessary. We already deal with way too much misogyny, being belittled by men we love, and workplace discrimination, to not be afforded the right to wear our hair the way we want to. Mind you, I’ve never worn a weave in my life, but the right to choose your hairstyle has never been parallel to your taste in music.”
But Masekela is having none of it.
“It’s not about weaves,” says Masekela. “It’s not about weaves at all. You know, it’s about other people’s hair. Like some people wear synthetic, and some even use horsetail hair. But it’s not even about that.”
“Africans and Europeans have had a long historical issue about African hair. When we first encountered Europeans, they laughed at our hair because it was hard. And, historically we’ve been given an inferiority complex, not only about who we are but about our noses being flat, our lips being big, our asses being big, and things like that.”
“And of course we were defeated, you know, in trying to defend Africa. We were enslaved, then we were urbanized, then we were also ‘religionized’. So we’re very far from who we really are originally.”
“We are the only society that imitates other cultures. I mean we wear their clothes and everything. But the saddest part is how far we have come with trying to not look like ourselves.”
“Religion and urbanization have made Africans really believe that their own heritage is barbaric, savage, primitive, backwards, uncivilized and all those words. Psychologically, over the centuries we’ve been conditioned to think that our heritage is not good, that it’s inferior.”
The weave and what it represents is part of a much bigger picture, he says.
“Hair is one of the areas in which we’ve been put down,” he says. “But then we became exploited because apart from the issues of heritage we are the biggest hair market in the world. We spend tens of billions of dollars a year buying other people’s hair. And from a heritage and traditional perspective, that is sort of macabre.”
“So I don’t mind people wearing what they wanna wear, as long as I don’t have to take pictures with them. That’s all. It’s much more than me being an eccentric old man. There’s a whole history to it.”
“But it’s absurd when Africans fall over their feet to get their hands on blonde wigs. I mean I look at Umhlanga (the reed dance)… Half of those kids are wearing blonde wigs and weaves, and they don’t go with traditional clothes. You know, it’s the same as going skiing barefoot. It’s that absurd. But then they also put it on the children. A lot of them put it on their children. If you look at the little school children in this country, almost all of them have had their hair tampered with – their hair, in way or another, has been tampered with.
“If you saw the movie Hotel Rwanda, which was made here, you can see that they tried to wash all the kids’ hair so they look like Rwandans. And all the kids’ hair was ginger from refusing to be washed and it was still standing up by the time they were shooting. It passed over everybody’s head… people didn’t seem to notice.”
Bra Hugh, as the legendary trumpeter is affectionately known, is even disappointed by his own family.
“I was at a wedding just outside Polokwane in South Africa,” he says. “There were Venda relatives of mine and most of them were in traditional Tshivenda garb, but almost all the women were wearing weaves and wigs. One niece of mine had a red, black and yellow wig, a really shiny piece, and she had a matching one on her daughter who was three years old.”
“What that says to me is that, psychologically we have really been messed with. We are buying people’s hair but they are not buying any of our s***, except maybe a little art and craft… You know, it’s a sad joke.”
Back at the TV studio, Masekela moves on to sign autographs and I watch closely as my plus one asks Bra Hugh for a picture. Like many others in the room, my companion is sporting braids that are reinforced with synthetic hair. Masekela politely signs her book before posing with her for pictures.
Perhaps he didn’t feel like splitting hairs that day.

It’s A Sad Joke And Bra Hugh Isn’t Laughing

Two days before last year’s Grammy Awards, the prolific South African jazz musician and activist, Hugh Masekela, arrived in Los Angeles. He had been nominated in the ‘Best World Music Album’ category for Jabulani, a collection of South African wedding songs, some of which are more than a century old.
Although it was the second Grammy nomination of his long career—his song Grazing in the Grass was up for best contemporary pop instrumental in 1969—Masekela didn’t seem too preoccupied with the possibility of winning.
“Awards are not really my thing,” he says with a shrug.
At the time, the 75-year-old artist was content to catch up with his son Sal Masekela, who is best known as a TV host for ESPN’s X Games coverage and the E! Entertainment celebrity gossip show, The Daily 10.
Sal’s latest endeavor was an album of his own, The Sound of Alekesam, a blend of hip-hop, jazz and R&amp;B that wafts over the speakers at his production company office, where he and his father had just completed their first ever photo shoot together.
“The album sounds good, Selema,” Hugh says, slapping his son on the back and calling him by his full name, as he always does.
It’s no small compliment from a musician who has released more than 40 albums and performed with Dizzy Gillespie, The Byrds, Fela Kuti, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and Miriam Makeba.
Sal smiles sheepishly and says, “Thanks, man.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31257 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/AMY_F140_v1-1_CMYK-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/AMY_F140_v1-1_CMYK-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/AMY_F140_v1-1_CMYK-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/AMY_F140_v1-1_CMYK-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/AMY_F140_v1-1_CMYK.jpg 683w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
Sal is 42, and over the course of their relationship there has at times been distance between the two men, both physical and emotional. It was not always easy having a father who was constantly touring, who lived in exile from his homeland for 30 years while speaking out against South Africa’s apartheid, or who once struggled with substance addiction. But their bond is a strong one.
“The great thing about my relationship with my dad is that we’ve always been able to pick up where we left off. We’re two guys running on one track with a baton, and we’ve each sometimes had to go in different ways, but we’re there to hand it to each other,” says Sal.
Today, both father and son find themselves looking forward, while also embracing their roots.
Hugh is committed to restoring African heritage. Born in the town of Witbank, east of Johannesburg, he has always drawn inspiration from the music of his country.
“The music I make, I don’t call it my music. It is based on my township and indigenous rural roots in South Africa. That’s what brought me fame all over the world,” he says.
Hugh first started playing the piano when he was five years old.
“I didn’t go into it for notoriety or fame. I just went into music because I love it,” he says.
At the age of 14, he was given his first trumpet by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the late British anti-apartheid activist. Hugh began to develop his signature sound in the late 1950s, melding jazz with African influences.
He left South Africa in 1960, aged 21, beginning a 30-year exile. Settling in New York during a golden age of jazz, he attended the Manhattan School of Music and watched legends like Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Louis Armstrong firsthand. His first album, Trumpet Africaine, was released in 1963.
In the ensuing decades, Hugh became an international star and an outspoken political voice with songs such as Stimela, Soweto Blues and Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela), which became an anti-apartheid anthem.
Sal was born in 1971 and, like his father, grew up immersed in music.
“My earliest memories of my father are being with him in jazz clubs. Hanging out in studios and being around music and around artists that talked about the world,” he says.
As Hugh divided his time between the United States (US) and Africa, living in Zaire, Liberia and Nigeria, Sal was raised by his mother, Jessie Lapierre, a Haitian immigrant, and his stepfather, Manny Gonzalez.
“I’m a unique first-generation American. I borrow from all of it. I’m lucky in that I get to take the influences and the principles of my different cultures and shape them into who I am as a person,” says Sal.
As a young man, Sal marched to the beat of his own drum. Upon moving from New York to California in 1988, he took up surfing, which sparked his love of action sports. One of the tracks on his album alludes to his individualistic nature and his love of the ocean, as he sings: “I’m a black cowboy riding a dolphin”.
In 1990, after the release of Nelson Mandela, Sal joined his father on his homecoming tour in South Africa.
“It was really crazy. While Mandela had been released, apartheid itself was having a very hard time breaking down. I think people were starting to see that it was going to take a long time to put this car in reverse. There was a lot of violence and it was a tense time,” says Sal.
“It was very fulfilling for me to be able to bring him home and for him to see the other side of his heritage,” Hugh says.
In 2010, the two traveled throughout South Africa during the Fifa World Cup for ESPN’s 10-part video series titled ‘Umlando—Through My Father’s Eyes’.
“I took him to the poorest places in the country, to see the other side of it, and also the beauty of the country. It was just wonderful to watch him take it all in,” says Hugh.
For Sal, it was a different South Africa than the one he had visited previously.
“You could pull up at a red light and there’d be a car full of white people at the red light next to your car, and they might wave to you or smile. That might sound minute but the texture of the way people dealt with each other was different—especially among the younger generation,” he says.
The experience gave him immense hope for what the next 20 or 30 years could be like in South Africa.
When it comes to their own futures and those of Africa, Hugh and Sal are both ambitious and optimistic.
In the past year, Hugh has been busy performing in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the US, Canada, Europe and throughout Africa. He also spent five weeks in Trinidad and Tobago working on an album with Siparia Deltones, a steel band. The album is expected this year on Hugh’s record label, House of Masekela.
Sal has been equally busy covering surfing and mountain biking, writing new songs, and developing Art of Craft, a line of limited-edition T-shirts. The shirts are created in collaboration with artisans and a portion of the proceeds is donated to a charity of each subject’s choosing. Hugh was the first artist to be featured.
Sal was due to return to South Africa in March to ride in the Cape Epic, an 800-kilometer mountain bike. He also had plans to work with the South African surfer Jordy Smith, a good friend who does charity work in Durban to promote the sport to youth.
“I’ve always said that the first surfer of color that will have a real shot at the World Tour is going to come from South Africa,” Sal says during a recent phone call.
His optimism echoed that of his father during their earlier conversation before the Grammys.
“There is no society that has as much diversity and wealth and a reservoir of music and other things than Africa. We’re looking at Africa in its embryonic stage as far as I’m concerned,” says Hugh.
Hugh did not win the Grammy but when you are a legend, who cares?   FL

Tag: Hugh Masekela

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