Trumpeter Hugh Masekela’s 1980 protest concert, Live in Lesotho, reissued on vinyl

A sonic rebellion from “the father of South African jazz.”

Matsuli Music is reissuing South African trumpeter Hugh Masekel’s 1980 live concert, called Live in Lesotho, on 2xLP this December.

Read more: Black Disco – how jazz became the music of resistance in apartheid South Africa

Hugh Masekela rose to fame in 1959 as a member of the Jazz Epistles, the first African jazz collective to record a full-length studio album.

Banned from entering South Africa due to his social activism, Masekela and his partner Miriam Makeba performed in neighbouring Lesotho, drawing a crowd of over 75,000. Sonically challenging the apartheid, the concert “tore a gaping hole in the insulation the apartheid overlords had tried to build”, wrote Masekela.

Live in Lesotho includes previously unreleased archival photos, as well as liner notes by Atiyyah Khan.

It follows Matsuli Music’s reissue of South African multi-instrumentalist Bheki Mseleku’s spiritual jazz opus Celebration on vinyl for the first time.

Head here for more info in advance of its 2nd of December release, check out the artwork and tracklist below.

Tracklist:

1. Ashiko
2. Ha Le Se Le Li Khanna
3. Stimela
4. Part of a Whole
5. Sister Fania
6. The Healing Song