It's Selema, not Sal: The face of the X Games reclaims his name

He’s Selema Mabena Masekela.

For years, the man who became the voice and face of action sports, the Black sports personality with dreadlocks who helped push the X Games onto center stage, the truth-teller with the famous father couldn’t use his real name.

Everyone called him Sal, Sal Masekela.

Masekela, who left the X Games for nearly decade before returning late last year, will host broadcasts of the summer games finals that start Friday at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. The three-day event is the first large-scale summer finals held in front of crowds since the pre-pandemic days of 2019.

In a Zoom interview from his home in Topanga Canyon, Masekela talked about the X Games, racism and reclaiming his name.

Now 51, he grew up in New York, New England and California. His father, the late Hugh Masekela, was a South African trumpet player known as the country’s father of jazz. The musician was an activist who fought against racism, writing songs like “Soweto Blues” that became part of the sound track in the battle against apartheid.

Selema, named for his grandfather, moved across the country with his family as a teenager. His new friends in Carlsbad tripped over his name. They came up with an alternative.

“They said, ‘Dude, we figured it out. You’re Sal,” he said. “When you’re a kid, acceptance is everything. You’re willing to put your identity in your back pocket. I went with it, but I never got used to it.”

A host synonymous with X Games

Masekela became a surfer, skateboarder and snowboarder. He took a job answering phones for skateboarding magazine Transworld, later landing gigs covering extreme sports. In the late 1990s, an ESPN producer approached him with what seemed like a dream — working as a sideline reporter for the edgy, still-infant X Games.

The X Games became the mecca for action sports. Masekela was the host who become synonymous with the games. If you were into things that pushed the edge, that leaped and careened, that made people suck in their breath, you knew Masekela.

“He’s super famous,” said Blake Richards, owner of Val Surf skateboard and surfing shop in Thousand Oaks. “I like how real he is. He’s not over the top. He just tells it how it is.”

His brand grew. He worked as a sideline reporter covering NBA games. He hosted a daily show on the E! network.

People still called him Sal. His managers and employers told him the name made him more relatable to Midwesterners. One producer told him it didn’t make sense to use a name — Selema, as in rhymes with dilemma — people struggled to pronounce.

“He said if I wanted to be a star, I wanted to be digestible,” Masekela said, remembering the producer enunciating “Sal Masekela” and punctuating it with air quotes. “He said, 'That’s a star's name.'”

Masekela didn’t like it but lived with it, worrying about wounding the niche he carefully built.

X Games exit

He left the X Games in 2013 but remained a face of action sports, hosting extreme surfing, snowboarding and motocross events, also covering the Olympics. The X exit, he said, was pushed by what seemed like stalled growth, a once viral impact becoming more dormant.

“I didn’t see ESPN having the same passion to continue to make X Games the primary destination for action sports culture,” he said.

His life is diverse. He performs R&B music. He launched a surfing label. He made a documentary, “Alekesam,” about his father and their bond through music. He co-founded a nonprofit, Stoked Mentoring, that uses action sports to help youths. He started a relationship with actress Lupita Nyong’o, who won an Oscar for “12 Years a Slave.”

He remains passionate about extreme sports. His return to the X Games came after ESPN sold the majority stake of the franchise last year to the private equity firm, MSP Sports Capital. Masekela said the new owners almost immediately reached out to him.

“They wanted to restore the brand,” he said. The idea resonated with him. He came back for the winter X Games in Aspen in January. In Ventura, he’ll host broadcasts along with skateboarding legend Tony Hawk and athlete-performer Jason Ellis. The broadcasts will appear on ESPN and ABC, also live-streamed globally.

What's in store for the X Games?

Ask Masekela about the future of the X Games and he points at Rayssa Leal, the Brazilian skateboarder who gained attention in a video at age 7, doing a heel-flip as she skated down stairs wearing a fairy tutu dress. She won silver in the 2020 Olympics and now at age of 15 is a dominant force in street skateboarding.

He talked too of Jimmy Wilkins, the skateboarding vert champion who made waves on Instagram by sinking a 30-foot basketball shot while skating on a ramp.

Related: Ventura skateboarder Curren Caples ready for hometown X Games

“You make a great show,” Masekela said of the key to making the games unforgettable. “You create 'Did you see that?' moments... with events that have the ability to go viral.”

The games now revolve around youth, energy and the passing of the torch, he said, noting that in his first X Games run pre-teen athletes were a novelty.

“Now, you have these groups where half the field are kids 10 and 14 years of age,” he said, rhapsodizing too about BMX and free-style motocross. “It’s kind of an endless well of storytelling.”

What's in a name?

His discomfort at not using his given name in his career was always present but grew. "Sal” sounded to his ears like nails on chalkboard. People around him said there were two things he shouldn’t do: Cut his dreadlocks or go back to “Selema.”

“Biology would have its way with my hair,” said Masekela, now bald.

The tipping point for reclaiming his name came three years ago when a Black man, George Floyd, was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2022. The death pushed racism, equity and police violence into a national debate. Masekela contemplated the inequality he has experienced.

“People would say it’s incredible how well-spoken you are. How did you become so popular in (action) sport?” he said. “I’m not a novelty hire. I’ve been passionately pursuing this world since I was a teenager.”

It was the time to take a stand. He didn’t ask his team for opinions. He told them his name on-camera, in interviews, in life, would be Selema Mabena Masekela.

“I said, 'You know what? I’m not interested in being digestible anymore,'” he said.

Many people still know him as Sal. He doesn’t respond in anger but sees the microphone and the events he covers as a way to help educate people about the power of a name.

“I just feel excited when I get on camera and I get to say it’s Selema Masekela," he said. “This empowers me to be my own self.”

For more information on the X Games, go to https://tinyurl.com/mtedmybr.

Tom Kisken covers health care and other news for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at [email protected] or 805-437-0255.

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This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Selema Masekela, face of Ventura's X Games, reclaims his name