A biography for Hugh Masekelahasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“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.”
“I don't think any musician ever thinks about making a statement. I think everybody goes into music loving it.”
“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.”
“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 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Once in a while, I treat myself to a cheesecake or carrot cake.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 want to see Nelson walking down the streets of South Africa; I want to see him walking hand-in-hand with Winnie Mandela.”
“I grew up with protests, marches, demonstrations, struggle. But I come from a clan of community workers.”
“I am a forward-looking person and live in the moment to build for the future.”
“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.”