South African jazz legend Hugh Masekela has died

Johannesburg, South Africa | THE INDEPENDENT | Reports from South Africa indicate that legendary  trumpeter, composer and singer Hugh Masekela,78, has died after a battle with prostate cancer that started in 2008.

“After a protracted and courageous battle with prostate cancer, he passed peacefully in Johannesburg, South Africa surrounded by his family,” read a statement from Masekela’s family that was sent to the media on Tuesday.

“After a protracted and courageous battle with prostate cancer, he passed peacefully in Johannesburg, South Africa,” his family said in a statement.

The news triggered an outpouring of tributes to his music, his long career and his anti-apartheid activism.

[BREAKING NEWS] Legendary South African trumpeter, composer and singer Hugh Masekela has died at the age of 78, after a battle with prostate cancer #sabcnews pic.twitter.com/hsiZZpnHnE

— SAfm news (@SAfmnews) January 23, 2018

Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa said that “the nation has lost a one-of-a-kind musician.”

“He uplifted the soul of our nation through his timeless music.”

Masekela fled apartheid South Africa in the early 1960s, and did not return for three decades until after the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990.

Among his greatest hits were the anthem “Bring Him Back Home”, demanding Mandela’s freedom from jail, and “Grazing in the Grass”.

Keeping up his international touring schedule into his 70s with energetic shows, his concerts at home often exploded into sing-alongs.

A teenaged Masekela was handed his first trumpet — and later a Louis Armstrong hand-me-down — through anti-apartheid activist priest Father Trevor Huddlestone.

“I took to it like a fish to water. I was a natural,” he recalled.

Masekela performed across the world, and took off time last year for a show in Uganda.

In his early life, Masekela married Miriam Makeba in 1964, but the couple divorced in 1966.

Masekela is survived by a wife, Elinam Cofie, whom he married in 1999 and for whom he penned the song “Ghana”, a daughter, Pula Twala, and son, Selema “Sal” Masekela, from an earlier relationship with Haitian Jessie Marie Lapierre