{"id":9023,"date":"2018-01-23T22:56:30","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T06:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=9023"},"modified":"2018-01-24T12:01:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T20:01:06","slug":"hugh-masakela-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2018\/01\/hugh-masakela-has-died\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugh Masekela Has Died"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9024\" style=\"width: 240px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9024\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/hugh-masekela-2-2000-e1516776599539.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"230\" height=\"153\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9024\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo by Judith Burrows\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Hugh Masekela, a hero of African popular music and an inspirational fighter against discrimination, died today in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was 78. Masekela\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rapid ascent to fame in the 1950s led to international recognition of his trumpet playing and his protests against his country&#8217;s apartheid policy that for decades subjugated South Africa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s black people. By the time of his 1968 hit \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Grazing In The Grass,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he was a prominent figure in world&#8221;\u00a0culture. Masekela was a tenacious force in demanding that Nelson Mandela be released from his 27-year prison sentence. His song \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stimela (Coal Train)\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was one of his most powerful expressions in that camaign. In this video, he performs it at a festival near London in 1986, four years before Mandela\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sentence ended and he went on to become the first democratically elected president of South Africa.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AgYhTTZXP4g?rel=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"355\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>See this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/23\/obituaries\/hugh-masekela-dies.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=obituaries&amp;region=rank&amp;module=package&amp;version=highlights&amp;contentPlacement=5&amp;pgtype=sectionfront\"><em>New York Times obituary<\/em><\/a> for a complete account of Masekela\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life.<\/p>\n<p>Hugh Masekela, RIP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hugh Masekela, a hero of African popular music and an inspirational fighter against discrimination, died today in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was 78. Masekela\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rapid ascent to fame in the 1950s led to international recognition of his trumpet playing and his protests against his country&#8217;s apartheid policy that for decades subjugated South Africa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s black people. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}