Bra Hugh Masekela’s Time Album 2002
Remember back in the day when you used to go and buy an album from your favourite bootlegger. Found the album in a glass case with a great wrap paper and the list of sons on the CD cover, oh what an exhilarating joy it was to just experience that!
Well this album is the sort you’d wanna buy with all that sass unlike our Deezer and Spotify accounts. It was a pure joy. Bra Hugh released this album in early 2002 and the rest as they say is History. One of him performing some of these great songs in festivals and shows all over the globe. A personal favourite of this is the Estival Festival he did in Lugano Switzerland in 2008.
Well it’s a joy to see the fact that the album first track was ‘Thuma Mina ‘a song that was a great collaboration with Sello Twala & Peter Mokeana. A song that etched deep in the South African Christian community since Bra Hugh quotes the words off Isaiah 1;8, where he asks the Lord to ‘send Me ‘. A song that is a prayer against oppression, ignorance and Disease, a prayer to be a witness of progress.
‘Conchita’ The goddess of salsa and Latin fusion is a track that will have your hands on a beauty’s waist trying out salsa. A great celebration of the LatinX heritage in America and their wins as mixing well with Americans even with a lot of segregation and racial bias. This facilitates the cause of Latin Americans as no longer a minority but great community. Viva le Negra!
‘Happy mama ‘is s story song of a heroine who was an anti-apartheid warrior who has lost sons and daughters to police excesses that have facilitated the agony that she is feeling. She goes to exile after serving some 20 years in Jail for riding the freedom train. A story of a woman whose joy was nothing but freedom.
‘Cesior’ a track inspired to Hugh in his time in France, Celebrating Frances support of anti-apartheid and its ludicrous set pace by her setting of embargoes on SA at the former time, he sings of a French woman with knowledge of the Zulu language and her romantic and sensual demeanour. Its sets the pace for a romantic evening, more like a study in red, from roses to fine wine.
‘Thimlela’ a song composed in a sombre mood as is the nature of activism was a far cry against French land grabbing regimes in the 1950s but the story is continued by the rich cultural tunes set in ‘Mamoshaba’ a folk song that is rich in the trumpet symphony of Hugh’s love for his fervent Zulu culture.’Saduva’ and ‘Part of a whole’ take you to a 1960s south African disco that will have you missing the the ‘Pata Pata’ legend Mama Afrika Miriam Makeba and the great composer Caiphus Semenya!
Everything must: ‘Change ‘will become your new medley as you do a little dusting of your shoes. It voices concerns of forceful regimes in the DRC, Kenya, Togo and Uganda .IT also voices the lessons to be learnt by strong arm leaders from Mandela and Sengar! Him calling out heads of state was a remembrance of Fela Kuti’s Zombie and much, more of Hugh’s flugelhorn Solo.
‘Magic’ has impeccable percussion attention that will have you yearning for more solos as the album comes to an end. Magic alongside ‘old Folks, old people’ will remind you of the origins of Kwaito that are a pure indulgence and have dancing and exercising to the beat. These two singles have actually gone into record being the pioneers of the Kwaito music genre and awesome trends Kwaito. You’ll get to realise that old folks are into music too.
You can get the album on Amazon, Deezer and Spotify.
Compiled by; Mwaura Karumbi
