So sentimental: On home, father figures and the last

My collection of Ramapolo Hugh Masekela is far from definitive. Therefore, this annotated mix of his music is not so much a tribute to a son of the soil than it is a conversation between mohu Masekela and some of the artists he collaborated and lived with, starting with one of the most significant torchbearers of our time, Thandiswa Mazwai. In her liner notes, she speaks about how beautiful things like love do sometimes end abruptly. Did any of us expect Bra Hugh to be gone just like that?

by Thandiswa Mazwai, featuring Hugh Masekela

2009)

Mohu (the deceased) Bra Hugh’s love and commitment to a pluralistic and border-free Africa is as monumental as the idea of pan-Africanism itself. His commitment is evident in a life’s work that celebrates heritage and collaboration across generations, especially with the pioneers of kwaito and its family trees after his return from exile. As a result, we listeners have experienced future-present sonic hymns in our lived experiences.

Bra Hugh is the embodiment of a household name precisely because, in and through his work, we share unforgettable encounters as if he had visited people’s homes — accompanying ceremonies such as graduations, weddings and after-tears in southern Africa over the decades.

His music resided alongside that of artists such as Dorothy Masuka, Letta Mbulu, mohu Brenda Fassie, Abigail Kubeka, mohu Thandi Klaasen, Thandiswa Mazwai, mohu Miriam Makeba and mohu Lebo Mathosa.

Bra Hugh is one of those artists who illustrates why intergenerational conversations, especially of the oral and sonic kind, are critical. To me, that’s why his projects always sound fresh and colourful, even when mournful and sombre.

That elders such as Masekela go ancestral with such convivial salutations as “Bra” says something about naming in this part of the globe. It goes further, this naming. Fly Machine Sessions, a Jo’burgbased archiving and DJ collective, thanked “Bra Hugh” for the “gospels” he offered. There is also mention of him as a “god”. Indeed, in Sepedi, we say that the first or most immediate ancestor is the parent.

In the absence of a father figure, a “bra” plays an important role where I come from. In fact, the salutation “bra”, unlike its kin “grootman”, has crossed gender boundaries. Not to be alarmist, but it seems we are running out of the archetypical bras in South Africa, or perhaps we lost them a long time ago.

by Hugh Masekela (Hope, 1994)

Indeed, there is hope — just eavesdrop on any millennial conversation. This generation has been exposed to Masekela’s life’s work. But it is also this generation that has challenged his opinions to a point that some of his views are categorised as being judgmental — as if it’s a case of “parents just don’t understand”. As a DJ, I have been told several times: “I don’t relate to the music you are playing,” especially by millennials. Yet Stimela cuts across generations on any dance floor I have served thus far.

Writing about his memories of his hometown of Witbank, mohu Bra Hugh recalled: “It was a tough town where African miners drank themselves stuporous to blot out memory of the blackness of the mines and the families and lands they’d left behind, often never to see again. But even when the burning coal dust blackened out the sun, we still had music to sing our sorrow and illuminate our ecstasy.”

This song captures the presence of a crowd that sounds like it numbers in the hundreds over and above mohu Masekela’s oratory and trumpet and