Top 52 Quotes & Sayings by Hugh Masekela

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a South African musician Hugh Masekela.

Last updated on September 16, 2024.

Hugh Ramapolo Masekela was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer who was described as "the father of South African jazz". Masekela was known for his jazz compositions and for writing well-known anti-apartheid songs such as "Soweto Blues" and "Bring Him Back Home". He also had a number-one US pop hit in 1968 with his version of "Grazing in the Grass".

South African - Musician | April 4, 1939 - January 23, 2018

Source: Wikipedia

Watching a Kirk Douglas movie, 'Young Man With A Horn,' made me want to be a trumpet player.

Hugh Masekela

I don't criticise anybody, but I just don't understand religion. Like I don't understand nationalism. These are the two things that cause wars. I don't understand why they are supposed to be good things.

Hugh Masekela

I am a forward-looking person and live in the moment to build for the future.

Hugh Masekela

For me to want to play the trumpet was a very, very odd thing for my clan as a whole. One of my uncles was a high school principal, and he referred to my trumpet as a bugle, which really hurt me.

Hugh Masekela

Mandela was chosen as a symbol of the South African struggle, and he did that great. But I wasn't just happy for him. I was happy for the people.

Hugh Masekela

I think the most difficult thing that has had to happen in South Africa for the previously disadvantaged communities is they had to reconcile that the oppressor has been enriched and the establishment is now making five or 10 times more profit than they were during the time the economic embargo was on them.

Hugh Masekela

I don't think anybody has ever been able to live up to what they promised. I don't know a government that has ever been successful at that because once they get into power, things change and the world is controlled also by business now.

Hugh Masekela

In some townships, political parties are run by thugs financed from Cape Town. If we don't have support of the police, we can not have the ability to organize and to gain even a slight semblance of power.

Hugh Masekela

Just because Nelson has been released doesn't mean the government has done us any favors. We have nothing to be grateful for. The government destroyed our country, destroyed our people. If anybody needs amnesty, it is the government.

Hugh Masekela

I'm not a Christian. My participation in music is so full blast, 24 hours a day. And that's my religion. I think I'm as spiritual as the pope, because I spend as much time in my spirituality as he does.

Hugh Masekela

I always make the joke that I go home, to one of my homes, to go and do laundry so I can go on the road again.

Hugh Masekela

What people don't know about oppression is that the oppressor works much harder. You always grew up being told you were not smart enough or not fast enough, but we all lived from the time we were children to beat the system.

Hugh Masekela

Africa has been troubled for a long time - well, the world has been troubled ever since I was born.

Hugh Masekela

Not only in Africa but in much of the world, most leaders' pockets are lined by industrial business. And industrial business is never going to stop aiming at profit.

Hugh Masekela

Once in a while, I treat myself to a cheesecake or carrot cake.

Hugh Masekela

I've always stood on one fact - that all over the world, there are only two things, the Establishment and the poor people. The poor people are a massive majority and across the world they are exploited in different kinds of ways. The Establishment depends on exploiting raw materials and the poor.

Hugh Masekela

I don't think what I do is influenced by suffering. I come from a talented people who are prolific in music and dance.

Hugh Masekela

I think it is incumbent on all human beings to oppose injustice in every form.

Hugh Masekela

When I left South Africa in 1960 I was 20 years old. I wanted to try to get an education, and music education was not available for me in South Africa.

Hugh Masekela

I couldn't get away from the gramophone. It was the only thing that I ever really liked, and I was singing along by the time I was five years old - to the Modernaires and Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole.

Hugh Masekela

I have a major respect for nature. I'm an environmentalist.

Hugh Masekela

Twenty years ago, I was part of a movement of millions of people who were going after freedom. But today, they look and they say, 'What are the advantages of freedom?' So far, it's the vote and maybe, in certain places, lack of police harassment. You can live anywhere you want and do anything you want - if you have the means.

Hugh Masekela

I don't think I have the power to forgive.

Hugh Masekela

I got possessed by music as an infant.

Hugh Masekela

When I left South Africa there were 10 million people - when I came back there were more than 40 million. I had to learn how to get to the highways because when I left where there were no highways.

Hugh Masekela

It's obvious that the rest of the world loves high African culture - African culture, period.

Hugh Masekela

I grew up with protests, marches, demonstrations, struggle. But I come from a clan of community workers.

Hugh Masekela

The apartheid people were actors, and they had to act out their part in their beliefs every day. That's why we always saw them as being comedic.

Hugh Masekela

I lived for music since I could think.

Hugh Masekela

The thing that is being lost is heritage. In Africa, religion and advertisement and television and media hype have gotten Africans to where they are convinced psychologically that their own heritage is heathen, pagan, barbaric, savage, primitive.

Hugh Masekela

I don't think any musician ever thinks about making a statement. I think everybody goes into music loving it.

Hugh Masekela

In my view, Africa's real problems are cultural.

Hugh Masekela

I live a very enjoyable life. I understand what moderation is.

Hugh Masekela

I'm very interested in heritage restoration, and I'm working with a group of people to create a number of academies and performance spaces to encourage native arts and crafts and to explore African history.

Hugh Masekela

I've got to where am in life not because of something I brought to the world but through something I found - the wealth of African culture.

Hugh Masekela

Corruption is everywhere, man.

Hugh Masekela

One of the greatest things that could really happen to Africa is for us to get rid of the borders and for the leadership not to think that the countries belong to them... We didn't create the borders to start with.

Hugh Masekela

I just came from South Africa, a place that had been in a perpetual uprising since 1653, so the uprising had become a way of life in our culture and we grew up with rallies and strikes and marches and boycotts.

Hugh Masekela

If I don't make heritage visible and the strength of mother tongue important for my grandchildren, it scares me that they might say in 20 years from now, 'Well, it is rumoured that we used to be Africans long ago.' And in many urban areas, it's already happening.

Hugh Masekela

Whatever you go into, you have to go in there to be the best. There's no formulas. It's all about passion and honesty and hard work. It might look glamorous, but it takes a lot of hard work. The blessing with the arts is that you can do it forever.

Hugh Masekela

Apartheid didn't impinge on music. It impinged on people's freedoms.

Hugh Masekela

I'm travelling more than ever. I don't have the answer as to why, but the demand seems to have grown as I've got older.

Hugh Masekela

I started playing the piano when I was 6 years old 'cause my folks tried to get me away from the gramophone. And I just - I lived for music since I could think. And they got me piano lessons. So by the time I was 13, I was quite an accomplished piano player and musician.

Hugh Masekela

To tell you the truth, man, we spend most of the time travelling in hotels, in festivals, in concert halls, clubs, airports. The most unenjoyable part is all the security at airports.

Hugh Masekela

I want to see Nelson walking down the streets of South Africa; I want to see him walking hand-in-hand with Winnie Mandela.

Hugh Masekela

When people campaign for positions, they promise people all kinds of things.

Hugh Masekela

I think that anybody from the 20th century, up to now, has to be aware that if it wasn't for Louis Armstrong, we'd all be wearing powdered wigs. I think that Louis Armstrong loosened the world, helped people to be able to say "Yeah," and to walk with a little dip in their hip. Before Louis Armstrong, the world was definitely square, just like Christopher Columbus thought.

Hugh Masekela

I had to run away from home in order to be a musician. Because I came from a family of... my father was a health inspector; my mother was a social worker. And I was pretty smart in school. So they expected me to be some kind of academic - schoolteacher, or doctor, lawyer - and they were very disappointed when I told them I wanted to be a musician.

Hugh Masekela

I've got to where I am in life not because of something I brought to the world but through something I found - the wealth of African culture.

Hugh Masekela

My biggest obsession is to show Africans and the world who the people of Africa really are.

Hugh Masekela

The Afro-American experience is the only real culture that America has. Basically, every American tries to walk, talk, dress and behave like African Americans.

Hugh Masekela

All my experiences removed geography from my world.

Hugh Masekela

Top 52 Quotes & Sayings by Hugh Masekela

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