Sep 24, 2019
Masekela was born in Los Angeles, the son of a
Haitian mother
and South African jazz musician
Hugh
Masekela.
Masekela is also the
older half-brother of
Survivor:
Cook Islands contestant Nathan Gonzalez. He was
raised in
Staten
Island,
New
York in the same class with rapper
Method
Man and
Carlsbad,
California, where he attended
Carlsbad
High School. Masekela is the co-founder of Berkela Motion
Pictures with Jason Bergh. When he was a teenager, Masekela's
upbringing brought him to Southern California, where he was first
exposed to surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding.
His career began as an intern at Transworld Publications in
1992, home of
TW Snow,
TW
Skateboarding and
TW Surf magazines.
He served as an NBA sideline reporter for
ESPN during
the 2003-2004 season. Masekela was co-host of
The Daily
10, a countdown of the day's "top 10" entertainment stories,
on the
E! network
until it was cancelled on Sept 27, 2010 (last show Oct 1,
2010).
He was also host of both
the
X
Games and Winter X Games on
ESPN for
13 years but left in 2012 to work for NBC and NBC Sports Network
through a contract with Red Bull Media House.
He appears in the
"Green" episode of Yo Gabba Gabba singing the song "Hello World"
which aired on Nick Jr. on April 22, 2009.
In 2010, he was hired by ESPN to help as a correspondent in
its coverage of the
2010
FIFA World Cup in
South
Africa.
While working as a
correspondent, Masekela was featured, with his father, Hugh, in a
series of videos on ESPN. The series, called "Umlando - Through my
Father's Eyes", aired in 10 parts during ESPN's coverage of the
FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The series focused on Hugh and
Selema's travels through South Africa. Hugh brought his son to the
places where he grew up. It was Selema's first trip to his father's
homeland.
A native of New York, Masekela travelled the world in his
youth with his father, South African jazz musician
Hugh
Masekela.
Masekela's own band,
Alekesam,
shares the name of his
first film which chronicles his relationship with his father and
their connection through music, which premiered at the Tribeca Film
Festival in 2012.
Alekesam's music has
been featured on
Entourage and
House
of Lies, with their newest single, "All Is Forgiven", featured
on the season four premiere of the
Showtime hit.
Masekela has hosted live events, including YouTube's Brandcast in
New York and Paris, YouTube Live on Stage from the Kennedy Center
and Google's Zeitgeist.
In February 2014, Masekela made his
Olympic broadcasting
debut from the
2014
Winter Olympics in
Sochi,
reporting features for NBC's nationally syndicated Olympic
Zone.
He joined the
Emmy-award-winning investigative series VICE on HBO as a
correspondent and executive producer in 2015.
That year, he also
appeared in the remake of the cult classic Point Break.
From April 2016, Masekela appeared as the host and executive
producer of
VICELAND’s
docu-series,
VICE World of Sports.
The series took viewers all
over the world to explore each location's people, politics and
culture through sports. The series premiere at the
Tribeca
Film Festival on April 22. Masekela is also involved in
the production company UX Entertainment. Based in Los Angeles, UXE
specializes in film, commercials, music videos and animation
work.
Masekela has a clothing company, Art of Craft, which donates a
percentage of every sale to charity