Words matter. These are the best Hugh Masekela Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
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.
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.
I live a very enjoyable life. I understand what moderation is.
I think it is incumbent on all human beings to oppose injustice in every form.
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.
I lived for music since I could think.
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.
Once in a while, I treat myself to a cheesecake or carrot cake.
Watching a Kirk Douglas movie, ‘Young Man With A Horn,’ made me want to be a trumpet player.
I am a forward-looking person and live in the moment to build for the future.
I grew up with protests, marches, demonstrations, struggle. But I come from a clan of community workers.
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.
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.
Corruption is everywhere, man.
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.
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.
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.
It’s obvious that the rest of the world loves high African culture – African culture, period.
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.
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.
I don’t think any musician ever thinks about making a statement. I think everybody goes into music loving it.
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.
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.
I got possessed by music as an infant.
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.
