Hugh Masekela Quotations

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.

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'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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

I don't think what I do is influenced by suffering. I come from a talented people who are prolific in music and dance.

I lived for music since I could think.

All my experiences removed geography from my world.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.