Musician Hugh Masekela had ‘humour to the very end,’ son says

JOHANNESBURG – The son of legendary South African jazz musician and anti-apartheid activist Hugh Masekela says his father had “laughter and humour to the very end” before his death this week in Johannesburg.

Selema “Sal” Masekela told The Associated Press that “millions of people from across this world have shown their love for him” after a decade-long fight with prostate cancer.

Hugh Masekela spent decades in exile while publicly opposing white minority rule in South Africa. His composition “Bring Him Back Home” calling for Nelson Mandela to be released from prison became an international anthem for the anti-apartheid movement.

His son says Paul Simon’s “Graceland” tour in 1987 with Miriam Makeba, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and others was the “closest thing that my father had at the time to be actually being home.”