South African jazz legend Hugh Masekela died on Tuesday aged 78, his family announced, triggering an outpouring of tributes to his music, his long career and his anti-apartheid activism. "After a protracted and courageous battle with prostate cancer, he passed peacefully in Johannesburg," Masekela's family said in a statement.
It hailed his "activist contribution" to music, which it said "was contained in the minds and memory of millions." President Jacob Zuma praised Masekela as a "jazz artist, legendary trumpeter, cultural activist and liberation struggle veteran."
"He kept the torch of freedom alive globally fighting apartheid through his music and mobilising international support," Zuma said. "It is an immeasurable loss to the music industry and to the country at large."
South African singer Johnny Clegg described Masekela as "an outstanding musical pioneer and a robust debater, always holding to his South African roots." Masekela fled white-ruled South Africa in 1960, and did not return until after the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990.
Among his greatest hits were the beloved 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 became mass 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. He spent his early years in a conservative small town east of Johannesburg, surrounded by coal mines that relied on cheap black labour.