Hugh Masekela famous quotes

04-17-2025

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

#Culture #World #Wealth
It's obvious that the rest of the world loves high African culture - African culture, period.
-- Hugh Masekela

#Culture #World #Periods
I am a forward-looking person and live in the moment to build for the future.
-- Hugh Masekela

#Live In The Moment #Moments #Persons
When people campaign for positions, they promise people all kinds of things.
-- Hugh Masekela

#People #Promise #Campaigns
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

#Mother #Running #Father
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

#Two #People #Majority
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

#Thinking #People #Suffering
I think it is incumbent on all human beings to oppose injustice in every form.
-- Hugh Masekela

#Thinking #Injustice #Form
I don't think any musician ever thinks about making a statement. I think everybody goes into music loving it.
-- Hugh Masekela

#Thinking #Musician
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

#Home #Goes On #Laundry
I lived for music since I could think.
-- Hugh Masekela

#Thinking
I grew up with protests, marches, demonstrations, struggle. But I come from a clan of community workers.
-- Hugh Masekela

#Struggle #Community #March
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

#Answers #Demand
All my experiences removed geography from my world.
-- Hugh Masekela

#World #Geography
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
In my view, Africa's real problems are cultural.
-- Hugh Masekela

#Real #Views #Problem
Africa has been troubled for a long time - well, the world has been troubled ever since I was born.
-- Hugh Masekela

#Long #World #Born
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

#Years #Trying #Music Education
My biggest obsession is to show Africans and the world who the people of Africa really are,
-- Hugh Masekela

#People #World #Obsession
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

#Men #Airports #Clubs

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