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Hugh Ramapolo Masekela, known as “the father of South African jazz,” was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer, and anti-apartheid activist born in Witbank, Mpumalanga, in 1939. He began playing trumpet at fourteen after receiving his first instrument from priest and activist Trevor Huddleston. Masekela later joined the Jazz Epistles, South Africa’s first all-Black jazz group to record an album.
Forced into exile in 1960, he studied music in London and New York, where he collaborated with jazz legends including Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong. His international breakthrough came in 1968 with “Grazing in the Grass,” a chart-topping instrumental hit. Through works such as “Hope” and “Stimela (The Coal Train),” he addressed apartheid, migrant labor, and social justice while blending jazz, Afrobeat, funk, and South African rhythms. Masekela received the Order of Ikhamanga (Gold), multiple South African Music Awards, and international honors before his death in 2018.
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