Google Doodle honors South African jazz great Hugh Masekela

On what would have been his 80th birthday, South African jazz legend Hugh Masekela was honored with a Google Doodle, hopefully exposing the musician to fans who may have never heard him play. 

Born April 4, 1939, Masekela picked up the trumpet as teenager and quickly became ensconced in the jazz scene of Johannesburg, South Africa. Masekela became part of the group Jazz Epistles who, as Google notes, were "the first all-black jazz band to record an album in South African history." 

But in 1960, following the Sharpeville Massacre in which police fired upon apartheid protesters and killed 69 people, government crackdowns would lead to Masekela going into exile. The musician wound up in New York where he enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music. Masekela would also learn from jazz legends like Miles Davis who played across New York City. 

By the end of the 1960s, Masekela moved to Los Angeles where he would become part of the music scene and, in 1968, he had a number one hit with "Grazing in the Grass." 

Over the years he would collaborate with a number of music legends, including Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley, and perform as part of the touring band on Paul Simon's Graceland tour. 

His home, South Africa, was never far from his mind, though, as he wrote and performed several songs about the struggles happening there. As his stature grew, his activism took on a global scope, his music drawing more and more attention to the fight against apartheid. In the mid-1980s, he wrote the song "Bring Him Back Home" for the jailed leader Nelson Mandela. 

Following Mandela's release in 1990 and the end of apartheid in South Africa, Masekela finally returned to his home country where he continued his music career, recording a number of albums and continuing to tour. He received the Order of Ikhamanga in 2010, a South African honor.

Masekela passed away in January 2018 but, as the Google Doodle proves, his legacy will live on for years and decades to come. And if the Doodle has you interested in learning more, be sure to check out his 2004 autobiography, Still Grazing, and his lengthy discography which is available across streaming services, including Spotify.

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