THE music of the late legendary South African trumpeter, Hugh Masekela, lives on.
The Thanayi hitmaker died in 2018 from prostate cancer at the age of 78.
Trinidad and Tobago band, Siparia Deltones, announced the release of their new single called Mango Tree featuring Bra Hugh.
The song comes ahead of their highly anticipated collaborative album, Siparia To Soweto, released through Gallo Record Company and Montano’s Monk Music Group.
Deltones band leader and executive producer, Akinola Sennon, said one of Trinidad’s most popular meeting places is under the mango tree.
“It’s a place where politics, economics, history and culture are discussed. Some even claim to find love under the mango tree,” he said.
Both singles, Meeting Place and Mango Tree, embody the album’s ethos as a platform for the confluence of ideas, genres, cultures, and generations.
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Akinola said after Bra Hugh witnessed the Siparia Deltones at the San Fernando Jazz Festival in 2005, the idea of bridging the musical words of Africa and the Caribbean was born.
“The mission of the Siparia Deltones is to use the steelpan as a vessel to restore all facets of the cultural heritage of Trinidad and Tobago and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora at large,” Akinola said.
He said while their roots are inherently African, many other people and cultures have integrated into their society with the passage of time, which fostered peace and harmony.
“Siparia to Soweto represents a coming together, an amalgamation of people, experiences and culture into one 'meeting place,” he said.
He said ahead of Siparia To Soweto dropping on 15 September, the third single, Dingolay, is slated for release on 8 September.
Bra Hugh’s nephew Mabusha Masekela said: “I would say that Hugh’s music, in this day and age, is not a symbol but rather a source. It’s a source assembled over a six-decade period that inspires, strengthens, instructs, empowers, and entertains.
"A symbol, to me, is something that represents the form or spirit of something else. Hugh’s music is not a symbol of a thing, Hugh’s music is the thing.”
