Last updated on 27 January 2026
This week marked eight years since the passing of Hugh Masekela – a towering figure in Jazz music and a global symbol of artistic resistance. Masekela’s unmistakable trumpet sound carried the soul of jazz, Afropop and township rhythms to the world. Beyond the music, he was a fearless voice against apartheid, using his art to expose injustice, rally international solidarity and affirm the dignity of black South Africans during some of the country’s darkest years. Masekela’s memoir, Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela, is the deeply personal account of his musical journey, exile, activism and homecoming. This is an extract from the book:
One day at the Blue Thumb Reco r d s o f f i c e, Stewart picked up a copy of the New York Times and saw an article about an upcoming heavyweight championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Hyped as the “Rumble in the Jungle” by new boxing promoter Don King, it was to take place in Zaire later in the year. King, who had served time in a Cleveland prison for having caused a death in a street fight, was a close friend of a man named Lloyd Price and had roped him into the Zaire event to handle the entertainment aspects of the “Rumble in the Jungle.”
Lloyd Price had had major hit records in the early 1960s with “Stagger Lee” and “Personality,” which had shot him to the pinnacle of rhythm and blues success. King felt he was just the right man for the job after having known him since the beginning of his entertainment career. When I was hanging out with Johnny Nash and Danny Sims in the mid-1960s, I had met Lloyd Price on many occasions, and over the years we had come to know each other quite well.
On our way out of the Blue Thumb office, all Stewart wanted to talk about was the Rumble in the Jungle as he, Krasnow, and I headed for Dan Tana’s restaurant next to the Troubador Club on Santa Monica Boulevard, at the edge of Beverly Hills; it was our favorite watering hole. At our regular booth deep inside the restaurant, Stewart kept talking about the Rumble.
“This is a great chance to have a festival of the greatest artists from America, Africa, and the host country, man. The film that could be made of the festival and Ali and Foreman preparing for the fight would be fantastic. The whole thing could be called ‘Three Days of Music and Fighting’ [a reference to the Woodstock Festival of 1969], and we should see if Lloyd Price would be interested in our
helping him to put such an event together.
Our advantage is that you lived in Zaire, Hugh, you know the top musicians there, like Franco and Rochereau, who’d put it together, and Lloyd is your friend, man. He’ll listen to you. You should track him down and give him a call.”
At first I wasn’t too keen on the idea. I was still reeling from the breakup of Hedzoleh Soundz. Stanley and I had been talking a lot about getting Asante and Jagger to go with us to Washington, D.C., where the three of them knew some good musicians from Ghana and Nigeria. We were planning to hook up
with some of them and put a group together so that we could go out on the road and promote the new album we had just made. Stanley’s drummer brother, Frankie, was also in D.C.
I was rather surprised that Krasnow was impressed with Stewart’s idea and actually thought it was worth following through. The next morning I called Lloyd from Krasnow’s office and proposed our idea to him. He loved it. He said he was in a meeting then with Don King and Hank Schwartz, the owner of the broadcast rights and King’s partner. He put King on the telephone.
“Hugh Masekela, I have followed your career for a long time and I think that you are an essential brother. You have helped to inspire many of us to look in the direction of the Motherland to retrace our origins and to reconnect with our roots. I have no doubt that you would be a strategic participant in our effort to put together a festival to go along with the greatest fight of the century. As black brothers, armed with our different expertise in our chosen fields, we would capture the attention and the imagination of the entire world with our joint initiative.
“Billions of people will be watching this historical event. Let us join hands, my brother, and shake up the world. Any good friend of Lloyd’s is a friend of mine. You are welcome to join this great initiative in the history of the world. Now tell me, my brother, your idea is going to need financing. What kind of backing do you have available to make our vision become a reality?”
I said, “Don, I’m sitting here with the president of Blue Thumb Records, who is very enthusiastic about this project.” Don broke into a happy chuckle, “I love talking to presidents. Put him on the phone.”
The following evening, Krasnow, Stewart, and I took the red-eye flight to New York, where we had set up a meeting with King, Schwartz, and Price.
“You get the money to put on this festival and do a film of it. You give me ten percent of your budget and the profits, and you got yourself a deal,” Don King told us. We all shook hands and asked them for two weeks and we would come back to them with the money. At that point Krasnow said to us that that was as far as he could go with the project. He had gotten us in the door.
Now he had to go back to Los Angeles and run his record company. Alan Pariser, from the Detroit family that owned the Solo Cups fortune, had put his trust-fund money into several enterprises that yielded very good returns on his investments. Pariser was fascinated with the Zaire project and formed a company with Stewart and me called the Ace Company. In Liberia, I had been talking to Steve Tolbert, the president’s brother, who had been named minister of finance because of his outstanding business background and international reputation. As far as we knew, he had made his money legitimately, beginning in the rubber business and then branching out.
Some people thought his fortunes might have been ill-gotten, but then we came from the record business, one of the most exploitative and corrupt businesses in the world. We were about to get into bed with people from the highest ranks in the boxing industry, another business that was not too famous for honesty and fair play.
As we looked around us, we saw very few businesses that were angelic. And not being angels ourselves, we did not care too much where the money came from—as long as it wasn’t connected to apartheid. We would have taken it from the devil if we could find his dirty ass. We just wanted to be part of the Rumble in the Jungle. We knew it was going to be a huge task, and that we’d have to deal with major egos. This we were very much prepared for. What we did not anticipate was what a fucking nightmare it would finally turn out to be.
*Still Grazing – The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela is published by Jacana. The book retails at R380.
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