Hugh Masekela

Hugh Masekela (born April 4, 1939, Witbank, South Africa—died January 23, 2018, Johannesburg) was a South African trumpeter who was one of his country’s most popular instrumentalists. An outspoken opponent of apartheid, he lived in the United States, Europe, and Africa while bringing his own country’s unique rhythms and harmonies to international stages.

Masekela was the son of the chief health inspector of Sharpeville township, who was also a sculptor in wood and owned an extensive jazz record collection. Records by the American trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown inspired Masekela to play bebop with the Jazz Epistles in 1959, a group that included the noted pianist Dollar Brand (later known as Abdullah Ibrahim) and that was the first Black band in the country to record an album. When the grip of apartheid tightened the following year, Masekela immigrated to the United States, where he attended the Manhattan School of Music in New York City and began forming his own bands. In the 1960s he arranged for and accompanied his then wife, the singer Miriam Makeba; he also wrote and played songs in the kwela style, the pop-folk music of the South African townships.

Masekela traveled throughout Africa in the 1970s, becoming involved in the continent’s varieties of music, teaching for a year in Guinea, playing in the band of popular Nigerian performer Fela Ransome-Kuti, recording five albums, and touring with the highlife band Hedzoleh Soundz. In the 1980s, after starring in outdoor concerts in Lesotho and Botswana that drew throngs of both Black and white South Africans, he settled in Botswana and set up a mobile recording studio near the South African border in order to record that country’s musicians. He also played on Paul Simon’s “Graceland” world tour. In 1990 he received a telephone call from his sister Barbara, in Johannesburg, reporting that the South African government had declared amnesty for political exiles; herself an exile, she had returned home to become Nelson Mandela’s chief of staff.

At home in South Africa, Masekela released Hope (1994), his South African band’s revival of his biggest hits over the decades. He followed that with Johannesburg (1995), a departure from his previous work because it featured American-sounding rap, hip-hop, and contemporary urban pop selections. Masekela’s own contribution was limited to jazzy trumpet introductions and backgrounds, when he played at all. His later albums included The Lasting Impressions of Ooga Booga (1996), Revival (2005), and Phola (2009).

In 2004 Masekela published his autobiography, Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela, which was cowritten with D. Michael Cheers.