PUT down your vuvuzelas, this is the real sound of South Africa.

Hugh Masekela, who performed at the recent South African World Cup concert alongside Alicia Keys, Black Eyed Peas and Shakira, will be bringing his soaring and joyful trumpet sounds to Dorset this autumn.

From the townships of apartheid to the World Cup, South African music has travelled a unique road.

This year, two legends unite to present their songs of resistance and the colour and carnival of the greatest show on earth as the jazz icon Masekela returns to Britain with his band, in the company of the three doyennes of mbaqanga, the Mahotella Queens.

At 71, Masekela remains a phenomenal musician. A militant ambassador for six decades, Hugh Masekela has been an outspoken figure in the struggle for civil rights on both sides of the Atlantic and spent his career pushing musical boundaries.

He is also one of jazz’s greatest horn players, able to adopt township jazz, funk and hip-hop into his music. Career highlights include being part of the orchestra for the King Kong musical that first brought South African culture to the outside world in the 1950s, appearing at the Monterey pop festival in 1967 and becoming the first African to top the American singles charts with 1968’s Grazing In The Grass.

He was part of Paul Simon’s Graceland tour with Miriam Makeba in 1987 and the four-month tour of South Africa in 1991 that celebrated the end of both apartheid and his exile from his homeland.

His most recent album, 2009’s Phola, is one of his most important statements to date, an attack on the failings of the current South African government that proves his fire burns as ferociously as ever it did.

Although the Mahotella Queens had their first hit in 1964, few voices sound fresher than those of Hilda Tloubatla, Nobesuthu Mbadu and Mildred Mangxola, the three queens of mbaqanga, the soulful Zulu jazz that dominated township music in the apartheid era and still evokes the indomitable resolve of South Africa’s majority under white rule.

The concert is at Lighthouse, Poole on Thursday, November 18 at 7.30pm. Tickets are £19.50 from 0844 406 8666 or lighthousepoole.co.uk