But it wasn't just love of music that made the future trumpet player, flugelhornist and singer want to escape reality — it was the infamous South African apartheid system of government that was first put into place in 1948, when Masekela was 9 years old.

Masekela grew up to be one of his country's most famous jazz musicians and, later, world-fusion pioneers, incorporating indigenous musical styles, such as the hypnotic and lilting mbaqanga, with improvisation and funk. But politics was always at the heart of Masekela's dancing jams.

"The general fabric of thinking of all South Africans has always been protest music because we've had 400 years of war," Masekela said. "In South Africa, we have very few songs about the weather or love."

But underpinning these fight songs were booty-friendly grooves. "Almost every band was a dance band, because dancing is a major part of our music," Masekela said.

"You can't do it without dancing — even when you're protesting. Dizzy [Gillespie] used to tell me, 'Man, you come from a nation of dancing fools. I want to be a part in that revolution.'"

 But Masekela's political leanings, and the brutality of apartheid, forced him into exile in the early 1960s. Masekela remained away from South Africa until 1990, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

By the time apartheid ended in 1994, Masekela was recovering from a near lifetime of alcohol and drug abuse, recharging his creative batteries as well as his business developments in order to invest in the new South Africa.

One of those companies is the revitalization of his old record label, Chissa, which just licensed "Live at the Market Theatre," a disc of greatest hits, to Times Square Records in the U.S.

"A lot of money was put into destroying our culture and to impoverishing us and taking away our self-esteem," Masekela said. "We have to reclaim ownership of our culture, of our dignity, of our self-esteem."