60 Quotes by Hugh Masekela

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.