John Legend has been cast as the late singer and civil-rights activist Harry Belafonte in The Road Home, a Bill Condon film now in production. The film centres on South African jazz pioneer Hugh Masekela and singer Miriam Makeba during a tour of South Africa with Paul Simon under apartheid, placing Belafonte’s role within a wider story of music and political resistance.

Legend said Belafonte had been his friend, mentor and collaborator in campaigns for justice, and described playing him as a privilege. Thabo Rametsi will portray Masekela, Cynthia Erivo will play Makeba, and Guy Pearce will appear as anti-apartheid campaigner Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, who boycotted Simon’s Graceland tour; Legend previously won an Oscar for “Glory” from Selma.