Tip! **2025 Stock** The Chisa Years: 1965–1975 (Rare and Unreleased) gathers the most exploratory moments from a vital era in Hugh Masekela’s career, collected on BBE as part of the label’s Masterclass Series. As co-founder of Chisa Records with Stewart Levine, Masekela set out to document the crossflow between African musical idioms and the currents of soul, jazz, and R&B pulsing through the United States and beyond. The result is an archive alive with the friction and joy of experimentation—a fabric stitched by Johannesburg Street Band’s highlife, Letta Mbulu’s gospel-rooted vocals, and Fela-influenced groove patterns from Ojah, Masekela’s collective of Ghanaian and Nigerian expatriates.
The tracks on The Chisa Years travel widely: from the mbaqanga bounce and bright horns of “Afro Beat Blues” to the doo-wop shadings on pieces by the Zulus, every cut advances the dual drive of honoring South African heritage and testing new waters on American shores. Miatta Fahnbulleh’s appearances, among other key collaborators, deepen the album’s transnational scope, fusing the narrative pop instincts of the era with the rhythmic invention and lyric urgency that made Masekela’s work stand out. Masekela doesn’t just present African sounds to Western audiences; he reconfigures them, constantly probing how layers of identity and history can coexist musically without easy resolution. Critics have praised the collection for its consistency and importance, noting BBE’s stellar efforts in restoring these tracks for a new generation of listeners.
What emerges throughout is a vision of “African American Music” that expands far beyond genre or geography—a restless, collaborative project extending from spirituals and blues to township jive and pan-global funk. For listeners and collectors alike, this release is essential not only as a window on Masekela’s creative evolution, but as evidence of how independent record labels like Chisa could catalyze cultural dialogue and innovation. With rare and previously forgotten pieces, The Chisa Years stands as both historical document and testament to Masekela’s lasting impact on global music, marking him as a true architect of the modern jazz diaspora.
