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

Categorized in : Think Africa Time Difficult

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

african-music legacy culture

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

Hugh Masekela

obsession people world

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

Hugh Masekela

injustice form thinking

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

Hugh Masekela

moments persons live-in-the-moment

I lived for music since I could think.

Hugh Masekela

thinking

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

smart mother running

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

real trying america

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

Hugh Masekela

world-love periods culture

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

Hugh Masekela

statements musician thinking

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

majority two people

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

squares people thinking

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

Hugh Masekela

campaigns people promise

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

suffering people thinking

All my experiences removed geography from my world.

Hugh Masekela

geography world

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

uprising culture way

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

Hugh Masekela

march community struggle

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

Hugh Masekela

problem real views

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

music-education trying years

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

demand seems answers

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

Hugh Masekela

born long world