Mama Miriam Makeba Joins The Ancestors at 76

[meroe]

Miriam Makeba
4 March 1932 - 10 Nov 2008

Miriam Makeba was born in Johannesburg. As a young girl of thirteen, she entered a talent show at a missionary school and walked off with the first prize. She was often invited to sing at weddings, and her popularity grew in leaps and bounds as more and more people became dazzled by her talent. In 1952 she was chosen to sing for The Manhattan Brothers and toured South Africa with them. As early as 1956, she wrote and released the song "Pata Pata".

She received invitations to visit Europe and America, where she came to the attention of Harry Belafonte and Steve Allen and was capitulated to stardom. 1959 saw her becoming the first South African to win a Grammy award for the album 'An Evening with Harry Belafonte & Miriam Makeba'.

Miriam became an exile in 1960 when South Africa banned her from returning to her birth country - she was deemed to be too dangerous and revolutionary - this was after she had appeared in an anti-apartheid documentary, entitled "Come Back Africa", and this upset the then white apartheid government of South Africa. Miriam only returned to South Africa thirty years later.

In 1967, more than ten years after she wrote the song, "Pata Pata" was released in the United States and became a hit worldwide. It has since been re-recorded by numerous international artists. Miriam was a darling of the American public, but they turned against her when she married the radical black activist, Kwame Ture fka Stokely Carmichael, in 1968. Once again, she was at the receiving end of a dissatisfied and disgruntled country. Although the United States never banned her, her US concerts and recording contracts were suddenly cancelled.

She moved back to Africa, this time to Guinea where she was welcomed with open arms. Miriam continued to record songs and toured intensively. She was well respected by the government of Guinea and was asked to address the United Nations General Assembly as a Guinean delegate. She twice addressed the General Assembly, speaking out against the evils of apartheid.

Although always regarding herself as a singer and not as a politician, Miriam's fearless humanitarianism has earned her many International awards, including the 1986 Dag Hammerskjold Peace Prize and the UNESCO Grand Prix du Conseil International de la Musique. Makeba is also known for having inspired an enduring fashion in the 60's when the slogan "black is beautiful" was launched:

"I see other black women imitate my style, which is no style at all, but just letting our hair be itself. They call it the Afro Look."

Makeba Biography
She was received by such world leaders as Hailé Selassie, Fidel Castro, John F. Kennedy and François Mitterrand. She has toured with singers such as Paul Simon, Nina Simone, Hugh Masekela and Dizzy Gillepsie. The ban on her records was lifted in South Africa in 1988 and she returned to her homeland in December 1990. Four years later she started a charity project to raise funds to protect women in South Africa. Her first concert in South Africa (1991) was a huge success and this was a prelude for a world-wide tour which included the USA and Europe.

She has released over thirty albums over the years, and her powerful and distinctive voice retains the clarity and range that enable it to be both forceful as a protest march and as poignant as an African lullaby.

Miriam is Mama Africa, a lady with a special touch. She has weathered many storms in her life, including several car accidents, a plane crash and even cancer. She remained as active in her latter years as she did as a young girl with stars in her eyes.

Her exceptional personal and artistic profile is part of the history of this century, all adding to the dramatic elements of an extraordinary life, making Miriam Makeba a living legend.
ROME – Miriam Makeba, the South African singer known to fans worldwide as "Mama Africa" who became an international symbol of the anti-apartheid struggle, died early Monday after performing a concert in southern Italy, a hospital said. She was 76.

An emergency room official at the Pineta Grande Clinic, a private facility in Castel Volturno, said the singer died after being brought there. Italy's ANSA news agency reported that Makeba may suffered a heart attack at the end of the concert for an Italian journalist threatened by the Naples-area Mafia.

Makeba, often called "Mama Africa" and "the Empress of African Song," left South Africa in 1959. She tried to return in 1960 for the funeral of her mother, but her passport was revoked and she was not allowed to enter the country.

She lived in exile for 31 years in the United States, France, Guinea in West Africa and Belgium before having an emotional homecoming in Johannesburg in 1990, when many long-exiled South Africans returned under reforms instituted by then-President F.W. de Klerk.

"I never understood why I couldn't come home," Ms. Makeba said upon her return. "I never committed any crime."

In 1966, Makeba made speech before the United Nations denouncing the policy of apartheid, or racial segregation. After that, South Africa's government-run radio and television refused to broadcast her songs until last year.


***send condolences to her family at her myspace page http://www.myspace.com/miriammakeba

[rebelAfrika]

My heart is hurting from hearing this.

[XXPANTHAXX]

Miriam Makeba dies in Italy

ROME, ITALY Nov 10 2008 07:17

South African singer Miriam Makeba, "one of the greatest songstresses of our time", died on Sunday night after collapsing as she left the stage following a performance in Italy, the Foreign Minister said on Monday.

"One of the greatest songstresses of our time, Miriam Makeba, has ceased to sing. Miriam Makeba, South Africa's Goodwill Ambassador, died performing what she did best -- an ability to communicate a positive message through the art of singing," said South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

"Throughout her life, Mama Makeba communicated a positive message to the world about the struggle of the people of South Africa and the certainty of victory over the dark forces of apartheid colonialism through the art of song."

The ministry said the 76-year-old Makeba died at the Veneto Verde hospital near Naples after performing at the Castel Volturno.

"She collapsed as she was leaving the stage. She received paramedic assistance and was rushed to hospital where she unfortunately passed away," the ministry said in a statement.

"On behalf of our President Kgalema Motlanthe, our ambassadors and high commissioners stationed abroad, management and staff of the Department of Foreign Affairs, we convey our heartfelt condolences to members of the bereaved family," said Dlamini-Zuma.

Makeba, affectionately known as Mama Africa, sang about Africa's struggles for independence.

"People gave me that name. At first I said to myself: 'Why do they want to give me that responsibility, carrying a whole continent?' Then I understood that they did that affectionately. So I accepted. I am Mama Africa," she told Agence France-Presse in an interview in 2005.

Makeba, whose most famous hits included Pata Pata, The Click Song (Qongqothwane in Xhosa) and Mailaka, died after taking part in a concert for Roberto Saviano, a writer threatened with death by the Mafia, the Italian news agency said.

Miriam Zenzi Makeba was born in Johannesburg on March 4 1932.

As a child, she attended a training institute in Pretoria for eight years where she first started singing.

Her professional career kicked off in the 1950s with the Manhattan Brothers, before she formed her own group, The Skylarks.

She grabbed international attention in 1959 when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa.

She then went to London where she met Harry Belafonte. He helped her get entry to the United States, where she released many of her famous songs.

She received a Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording in 1966 with Belafonte for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba.

The album was about black South Africans living under apartheid.

When she tried to return to South Africa, she discovered that her passport had been revoked.

She testified against apartheid before the United Nations in 1963.

She was married to musician Hugh Masekela and Trinidadian civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael, who was also the leader of the Black Panthers.

When her only daughter, Bongi Makeba, died in 1985, she moved to Brussels.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela persuaded her to return to South Africa in 1990.

She was always optimistic about post-apartheid South Africa, even though she acknowledged that it came with its own problems.

"We have only had 11 years of democracy but we are moving, we are moving forward faster than many countries who have been independent a long, long time before. We all have to do it together, all of us, found ourselves this country regardless [whether] we are black, white or whatever," she said in an interview.

Asked who the next Makeba would be, she replied: "No, nobody can replace me as I can't replace anyone else," and added that she wanted to leave a memory of, simply, a "very good old lady". - Sapa

Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: Miriam Makeba dies in Italy - Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source

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Responses to the passing of Mama Africa

Lala ngoxolo MAMA AFRICA. May the heavens rejoice to the coming of a new gracious choir member who will add her eloquent voice to te already magnanimous heavenly choir. The message you preached is still of great importance to this turbulent African continent of ours as liberators have turned killers and great oppressors of our time. To the African family i say peace be with you in these trying times. Your voice will be forever missed. Rest in Peace Miriam

Makebagromyko ngwenya on November 10, 2008, 11:28 am

May her soul rest in peace .My condolences to the Makeba family.Umzansi lost one of its true horoines indeed.

Nozinhle Dube on November 10, 2008, 11:36 am

VIVA the BEAUTIFUL SOUL & LIFE of Miriam Makeba, MAMA AFRICA!!! and all who loved her: her family, friends and all she inspired and will continue to do so. I 'was with' Miriam on Friday night at her concert in Amsterdam (I'm a South African living way too far away from home: "Africa is where my heart lies"!) - intensely beautiful: she sang happy birthday to a 75yr woman and wished that she "will be dancing like me when you are my age". She deeply thanked the people of the Netherlands for listening to and supporting South Africa. "We have not forgotten.. and we still need your support!" She (and we) SANG!!! danced, laughed, perhaps cried... and felt our hearts beat strongly with love and joy for LIFE. Miriam, I thank you forever for your incredible life and work for South Africa and PEACE.

kirsten neke on November 10, 2008, 1:09 pm

Rest in peace Mama Africa. You have run your race and we thank you for gracing us with your sweet voice and now it is time to sing with the angels. The world will always remember you and South Africa in particular will always remember the role you played during the liberation struggle. The fact that you sang your last note in a foreign land is proof enough that you will always reamain an international icon. lala ngoxolo!!!!

Bethuel Peter Nsibande on November 10, 2008, 7:43 am

May her soul rest in peace.
Nkateko Malabie on November 10, 2008, 9:17 am

if only emotions could describe the inability of expression within a human desire, imagining the world at large, being a supreme of humanity, defining UBUNTU at an international level, levelling sinking souls with your music. yes it came as a shock, with disbelief i remain. i wont ask the questiion most would as "why" i however thank god for allowing me to witness the power and prowess display by my legends, our legends. may your soul rest in peace! MAMA AFRICA, as is my journey to discover what seems impossible you remain an inspiration thank you. my condolences go to mama africa's family, friends and all who cared.

Bongani Mnguni on November 10, 2008, 9:26 am

Unsung heroin indeed. Rest in peace mamaMeriam Makeba. What a loss indeed. SA is very lucky to have you as an ambassador to UN.

Mokgadi Mathekga on November 10, 2008, 10:07 am


S African icon Miriam Makeba dies

South African singing legend Miriam Makeba has died aged 76, after being taken ill in Italy.

She had just taken part in a concert near the southern town of Caserta, the Ansa news agency reported.

The concert was on behalf of Roberto Saviano, the author of an expose of the Camorra mafia whose life has subsequently been threatened.

Ms Makeba appeared on Paul Simon's Graceland tour in 1987 and in 1992 had a leading role in the film Sarafina!

Ansa said she died of a heart attack.

'Mama Africa'

Ms Makeba was born in Johannesburg on 4 March 1932 and was a leading symbol in the struggle against apartheid.

Her singing career started in the 1950s as she mixed jazz with traditional South African songs.

She came to international attention in 1959 during a tour of the United States with the South African group the Manhattan Brothers.

She was forced into exile soon after when her passport was revoked after starring in an anti-apartheid documentary and did not return to her native country until Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

Makeba was the first black African woman to win a Grammy Award, which she shared with Harry Belafonte in 1965.

She was African music's first world star, says the BBC's Richard Hamilton, blending different styles long before the phrase "world music" was coined.

After her divorce from fellow South African musician Hugh Masekela she married American civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael.

It was while living in exile in the US that she released her most famous songs, Pata Pata and the Click Song.

"You sing about those things that surround you," she said. "Our surrounding has always been that of suffering from apartheid and the racism that exists in our country. So our music has to be affected by all that."

It was because of this dedication to her home continent that Miriam Makeba became known as Mama Africa.

Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Africa | S African icon Miriam Makeba dies
Published: 2008/11/10 07:06:38 GMT


Mandela's tribute to Makeba

Miriam Makeba spent years in exile for opposing apartheid

The text of Nelson Mandela's statement paying tribute to South African singing legend Miriam Makeba, who has died aged 76:

The sudden passing of our beloved Miriam has saddened us and our nation.

For many decades, starting in the years before we went to prison, MaMiriam featured prominently in our lives and we enjoyed her moving performances at home.

Despite her tremendous sacrifice and the pain she felt to leave behind her beloved family and her country when she went into exile, she continued to make us proud as she used her worldwide fame to focus attention on the abomination of apartheid.

Her haunting melodies gave voice to the pain of exile and disclocation which she felt for 31 long years.

At the same time, her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us.

Even after she returned home she continued to use her name to make a difference by mentoring musicians and supporting struggling young women.

One of her more recent projects was to highlight the plight of victims of land mines.

She was South Africa's first lady of song and so richly deserved the title of Mama Afrika.

She was a mother to our struggle and to the young nation of ours. It was fitting that her last moments were spent on a stage, enriching the hearts and lives of others - and again in support of a good cause.

Miriam Makeba - A Luta Continua Africa RBG Tube | PanAfrican.TV v2.0 - Free Revolutionary Audio Video Speech Library of Leaders, Activist, and Educators

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Soweto Blues-Miriam Makeba Africa RBG Tube | PanAfrican.TV v2.0 - Free Revolutionary Audio Video Speech Library of Leaders, Activist, and Educators

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Miriam Makeba-Pata Pata(TV Record,S.Paulo,Brazil,1968) Africa RBG Tube | PanAfrican.TV v2.0 - Free Revolutionary Audio Video Speech Library of Leaders, Activist, and Educators

Miriam Makeba-Pata Pata(TV Record,S.Paulo,Brazil,1968) Africa RBG Tube | PanAfrican.TV v2.0 - Free Revolutionary Audio Video Speech Library of Leaders, Activist, and Educators

Miriam Makeba - The Click Song 1966 Africa RBG Tube | PanAfrican.TV v2.0 - Free Revolutionary Audio Video Speech Library of Leaders, Activist, and Educators

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Miriam Makeba- When I've Passed On Africa RBG Tube | PanAfrican.TV v2.0 - Free Revolutionary Audio Video Speech Library of Leaders, Activist, and Educators

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May our Ancestors be pleased with her soul... Amandla, Amandla I Afrika Mayi Buye!!

[Majadi]

Oh, my beautiful Queen of Rythym, I just watched her on an old episode of the Cosby Show! She is someone my mother played for me when I was a youth!!! I will post her picture at my desk for the rest of the week!!!

[XXPANTHAXX]

Sing it loud, sing it strong


by Gamal Nkrumah son of Kwame Nkrumah

I don't have an earliest recollection of Miriam Makeba: she was simply always there, on stage, television or as a special presidential guest at home in Flagstaff House, Accra. Perhaps my first memory of her could have been when she sang at the third Organisation of African Unity summit in Accra in 1964 -- I cannot tell. However, I distinctly remember her singing at my father's funeral in Conakry in 1972. I was an impressionable 12-year-old and what struck me most about her was the way she revelled unabashedly in her own sensuality, her natural exuberance and utter delight in communicating her feelings passionately to her audience. She came across as the very embodiment of a celebration of life.

Even now, her explosive energy shows no sign of abating.

Singer, songwriter, political activist, actress, great-grandmother and both United Nations and South African government goodwill ambassador, Makeba displays a moving and impassioned creativity and an astounding capacity for working at full throttle.

African leaders have called on the empress of African music for over four decades now, and Miriam Makeba has obliged them happily. Often struck dumb by shyness in her youth, she now feels she can speak her mind. She has worked hard for the accolade "Mama Africa," and it is well deserved. Makeba is best known for her classic Pata Pata, but songs like I Still Long For You, Meet Me At The River, Soweto Blues, African Sunset and Unify Us, a plea for African unity, have enthralled millions in Africa and around the world for five decades. Indeed, she calls her band the Organisation of African Unity -- "African Union, I should now say," she remarks with the enigmatic smile her fans remember from the days of her great triumphs on stage.

"I thought I'd be tired of doing it by now, but I am not. I love to sing." Grandchildren Lumumba and Zenzi now perform with her on stage. Makeba's latest album, Homeland, includes such hits as Maskhane, Amaliya, In Time and Africa is Where My Heart Lies.

(photos: Randa Shaath)
She describes performances for world leaders such as John F Kennedy, Mitterrand, Castro, Mandela, Nyerere, Kenyatta, Nkrumah, Toure and the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie as "unforgettable." Similarly close to her heart are shows with international stars. Perhaps the original world music diva, Makeba has toured the world with other internationally renowned artists like Dizzy Gillespie. Her Three Divas tour, with Odette and Nina Simone, was a great success. And Paul Simon's 1987 Graceland world tour, featuring the South African musical group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, was another extraordinary experience. She has performed at London's Royal Festival Hall and Paris' Olympia Theatre. Celebrities like Sidney Poitier, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone and Miles Davis danced, dined and performed with her. They were her idols back home in South Africa. In the US, they became her closest friends. Makeba is also the first African recording artist to have been awarded a Grammy.

One of the most sought-after and glamorous figures on the African musical scene, she is fluent in English and French as well as a number of local South African languages like Zulu, Xhosa and Swazi. But the legendary performer sings in many languages the more bluesy variants of traditional African tunes. She sang Malaika (Angel) in Kiswahili. In Guinea a Lebanese friend wrote an Arabic song for her, Dakheel Eyounek: the words did not come easily, but she managed. Her first Arabic song was Ifriqia (Africa), an ode to her beloved continent, which she first sang at a pan-African festival in Algiers.

I asked if she had a favourite among her many songs. "In New York I heard A Piece of Ground, written by a white South African, Jeremy Taylor. I modified it a little and sang it myself. That song is very special to me because it deals with the land question in southern Africa. We were dispossessed of our land," came her prompt reply. For a mother who sings about the terrible grief of losing her only child, Makeba's answer was an unexpected revelation.

For Makeba, however, the political is personal. Her persona is completely subsumed in the cause of African emancipation. In 1963, at the height of her singing career, Makeba testified against apartheid before the UN, prompting the apartheid South African government to revoke her citizenship and right to return. Again in 1975, she addressed the UN General Assembly. And in 1986, she won the Dag Hammerskjold Peace Prize. She is perhaps the only African artist who has had three private audiences with the Pope. She will not elaborate on her religious beliefs, but chuckles that the papal visits were not confessions.

Makeba's talent has been put to good use for fund-raising purposes since the heyday of the African liberation struggle in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Recently, Graça Machel-Mandela, the current South African first lady and the widow of the late Mozambican President Samora Machel, asked her to sing at the 15th anniversary of his tragic death in a plane crash over South Africa. The event was held in Mid-Rand, Johannesburg, and Makeba sang A Luta Continua, The Struggle Continues.

She fondly remembers the days she used to visit the Machels in the Mozambican capital. The then exiled Makeba would fly to Maputo, where the anti-apartheid struggle had its headquarters. As a guest of the Machels, she would sing for the South African community of exiles in Mozambique. Today, she works closely with Graça Machel-Mandela for children suffering from HIV/AIDS, child soldiers, and the physically handicapped. "The tragedy of civil wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique is that they left many civilians maimed," Makeba explains. Yesterday she was fighting apartheid, today she is enlisting the young in the battle against HIV/AIDS. "Poverty is the reason HIV/ AIDS spread so rapidly in the African townships and slums," Makeba says. "Poverty is the real killer," she says emphatically.

A couple of days before her recent trip to Cairo, Makeba received a phone call "way past midnight" from South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The minister, who was flying to Egypt on an official visit to boost bilateral ties, pleaded with Makeba to accompany her to Egypt and perform in aid of the Cairo-based Association of Friends of the National Cancer Institute (AFNCI) effort to raise funds for the construction of a hospital specialising in the treatment of children with cancer. The project, the first of its kind in Africa and the Arab world, has received generous support from South Africa since it is built to serve child cancer patients throughout the continent. The AFNCI gig was the most recent of Makeba's five-decade musical career, the hallmark of which has been the staging of charitable musical extravaganzas.

With no visa and no tickets, Makeba dashed to the plane preparing for take-off with only a boarding pass in hand. She could not let the minister down. Only a decade ago, taking directives from a South African foreign minister would have been high treason; so Makeba figured that complying with the wishes of a black woman foreign minister in a country with a history like South Africa's is a sacred duty. And all for a good cause to boot.

"We are the now people," Makeba smiles, shrugging off the last-minute mad dash to the airport. "Europeans plan ahead. We Africans don't. Mind you," she giggles, "in 1960 some Senegalese artists asked me to participate in a pan- African culture and art festival, which was to be held in Dakar seven years later! I did not take them seriously and forgot all about it. As a result, when the time came, I had other prior engagements."

Makeba was the first African artist to perform before the founding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The leaders of the independent nations of Africa showered her with accolades. In apartheid South Africa, however, she was still a "kaffir," a derogatory term derived from the Arabic for pagan or unbeliever, which whites used to designate blacks. Makeba remembers going to the South African embassy in New York to apply for permission to return home for her mother's funeral. "The man at the desk took my passport. He did not speak to me. He took a rubber stamp and slammed it down. Then he walked away. I picked up my passport. It was stamped 'Invalid'. 'They have done it,' I told myself. 'They have exiled me. I am not permitted to go home -- not now, maybe not ever. My family, my home. Everything that has gone into the making of myself, gone'." She has had nine different passports, including those of Ghana, Guinea and Tanzania. In 1972, Fidel Castro gave her a Cuban passport. Now she only has two: French and South African. She even has a school named after her in Pretoria.

She can be shy and retiring, but she holds her own in the most animated political discussions. When pressured to follow orders she sees as inappropriate or politically unwise, she becomes more than a little stubborn. Still, Makeba readily concedes that she's at her best when directed by political leaders. While she sings for political causes, she sees herself essentially as an artist. By her own admission, she is not an intellectual. But her choice of songs forcefully demonstrates the deep thinking that goes on behind the stage production. And while her political statements can seem simple, they are informed by a personal experience of struggle that has given her more wisdom than any university degree. "I look at an ant and see myself: a native South African, endowed with a strength much greater than my size, so I might cope with the weight of racism that crushes my spirit."

Stunningly beautiful at 70, Makeba has an expressive face and a quick smile. Her playful, laughing eyes reveal a feminine and flirtatious nature. It is sometimes difficult to reconcile the bashful off stage Makeba with the way she sways her hips to her signature tune, Pata Pata, written by fellow southern African artist Dorothy Masuka. "I'm 70 next year, and I guarantee that when you see the show tonight, I'll be in better shape than I was 20 years ago," she winks and chuckles. "The knees sometimes give way, but they are going to be on their best behaviour," she says, patting them proudly as she would one of her great-grandchildren.

The rough townships surrounding her hometown, Johannesburg, where she was raised, pulsated with the powerful African rhythms that nurtured her talent. Makeba was born in Johannesburg in 1932. Her mother was a traditional healer-herbalist of the Swazi people. And Makeba inherited her mother's "charisma" and "good singing voice." Her father was an ethnic Xhosa who died when she was six. Makeba was introduced early to the evils of apartheid: she spent the first six months of her life in prison with her mother.

She began her career in the 1950s as a vocalist in the South African jazz group the Manhattan Brothers. Then she formed her own group, the Skylarks, singing a blend of traditional melodies and jazz that was to become her trademark. But 1959 was the landmark year. She played a leading role in the South African stage production of a black jazz opera, King Kong, which tells the tragic story of Black African boxer Ezekiel "King Kong" Dlamini. "My mother was in the audience," remembers Makeba, wiping away a tear with her handkerchief. The memory, however, has brought on uncontrollable laughter, as well as sobs of grief. "That was the only time my mother saw me on stage. At one point in the play I am strangled and my mother jumped from her seat and screamed: 'No. You will not get away with murder. You cannot do this to my daughter.' Friends explained to her that this was not for real -- that we were acting. But she made such a fuss. Everyone was so embarrassed. On stage my heart sank," said Makeba, still laughing and crying simultaneously.

Makeba sang about Africa, but it was America, home to a slew of music festivals and world-famous venues, that pushed her into the international music spotlight. The high priestess of African music won international acclaim for her role in the documentary Come Back Africa, which led to club bookings across the US. The award- winning film was screened at the Venice Film Festival and Makeba was invited to attend. "What I saw made my eyes grow wide. There were white women who cut hay and carried it on their backs and white men with handkerchiefs wrapped around their foreheads to keep the sweat from their eyes as they dug ditches. Back home we never saw whites doing manual work -- that was reserved for blacks."

She was not to return to her native South Africa until well over three decades later. From Venice, Makeba flew to London, where she was received with even more acclaim. But perhaps nowhere was she celebrated more enthusiastically than in the United States. When she flew to New York, Harry Belafonte, "Big Brother" as she would fondly come to call him, sent a car to pick her up. He also arranged for her appearance in Los Angeles on the Steve Allen Show. Makeba's New York debut at the Village Vanguard drew unprecedented crowds. Belafonte asked some of the best fashion designers in the US at the time to dress her. But she had her own, distinctively original style. Indeed, she started a fashion trend in the US, inspiring many African Americans to wear African attire on formal occasions. In America, too, she signed with William Morris and RCA Records. Time magazine called her the "most exciting new singing talent to appear in many years," and Newsweek enthused: "She sings with the smoky tones and delicate phrasing of Ella Fitzgerald and the intimate warmth of Frank Sinatra." Makeba also knew how to move her audiences with rousing political speeches.

She unwittingly gave all that up in 1968, when she married Stokely Carmichael, Kwame Ture as he later became known, of Black Panther fame. Her marriage to Carmichael cost her dearly. She was blacklisted and her shows in the US were routinely cancelled. The political climate in America had become too repressive for black activists. By association with him, Makeba became affiliated to the Black Panthers in the American psyche. She emerged as a political icon among African Americans of her generation, who loved her as much for her politics as for her art.

In this case, though, the political was personal too. "I suppose my pulse raced a little faster," says Makeba, with a flutter of her eyelashes, of the dashing Black Panther. The couple left America for Guinea, where they became close to President Ahmed Sekou Ture and his wife, Andrée. Makeba was to make Guinea her home for the next 15 years.

When Makeba's only child, her daughter Bongi, died in 1985 after complications in childbirth, she could not bear to stay in Conakry any longer. She and her granddaughter, Zenzi, have sung together about the pain of losing Bongi. It is a heartbreaking lament.

She took her teenage grandchildren, her namesake Zenzi and Lumumba, along with her, and left the country where she had forged such unforgettable memories, the land where her daughter is buried. "I still own a house in Dalaba," Makeba says referring to the breathtakingly beautiful mountain resort in the rugged Futa Djallon plateau of central Guinea.

She travelled to Brussels, staying first with a friend and then moving to a small flat of her own with her grandchildren. Nelson Mandela's 1990 release ended apartheid and Makeba's exile, however, and she launched an emotive and especially memorable reunion tour of her country. "Mandela remembered me from the old days when he used to frequent the clubs I sang in before I left South Africa," she explains. It reminded her of the old days when, as lead vocalist for the African Jazz and Variety Show, she had toured the country with the man who would become her first husband, fellow South African celebrity Hugh Masekela.

She returned home on 10 June 1990, on her French passport. "Normally I sleep during long flights, but when I was returning to my country I could not sleep a wink," she confesses. Accompanying her was her Italian manager at the time, Roberto Meglioli. "He was the only white man around and confessed to me that he was pretty scared," she chuckles.

By that time, all her siblings, save one, Joseph, were dead. "My brother's was the first face I spotted in the crowd," she says quietly. "After a stopover at his house, I went straight to my mother's grave. I spent hours alone in the graveyard, remembering, weeping and contemplating in silence."

From the graveyard, she headed for an ANC youth meeting. "The young people were very excited and chanted 'Mama Africa' as I entered the packed hall where the meeting was held." The spontaneous affection and appreciation she has been shown all over the continent has sustained her over the years -- a point she stresses in her 1988 autobiography, Makeba, My Story.

After Cairo -- this recent visit was her first -- she returns to South Africa to make final preparations for a tour of the US which kicks off in Boston on 1 November. The tour will also take her to San Francisco, New Orleans, New York and Washington, where, at the invitation of the wives of the Arab ambassadors, she is to sing in honour of Mandela at the Kennedy Centre together with her old friend Belafonte. Thus will all the strands of her life -- all the people Miriam Makeba has been, all the places she has seen, and all the causes for which she has raised her voice -- come together at last.

[Im The Truth]

RIP Mama Miriam.

[Jalili]

"Mama Africa" Miriam Makeba dies after concert
Mon Nov 10, 2008 8:55am EST


By Serena Chaudhry
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African singer Miriam Makeba, one of Africa's best known voices and a champion of the fight against apartheid during three decades in exile, has died of a heart attack after a concert in Italy. She was 76.
Known as "Mama Africa" and the "Empress of African Song," Makeba was the first black South African musician to gain international fame, winning renown in the 1950s for her sweeping vocals. She was loathed by South Africa's white minority rulers.
Former South African President and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela paid homage to the singer, calling her "South Africa's first lady of song" and saying her music inspired hope.
"Despite her tremendous sacrifice and the pain she felt to leave behind her beloved family and her country when she went into exile, she continued to make us proud as she used her worldwide fame to focus attention on the abomination of apartheid," Mandela said in a letter released by his foundation.
"It was fitting that her last moments were spent on a stage, enriching the hearts and lives of others -- and again in support of a good cause."
Makeba fell ill after a concert against organized crime in the southern Italian town of Baia Verde late Sunday, her publicist said. She died after being rushed to a clinic in the town of Castel Volturno.
"It was from a heart attack, but she had not been well for some time," publicist Mark Lechat told Reuters. He said Makeba had also been suffering from arthritis.
TRIBUTES
Radio stations across South Africa paid tribute to the singer, reading out text messages in praise of one of the best loved stars in the country and across the continent.
"Throughout her life, Mama Makeba communicated a positive message to the world about the struggle of the people of South Africa and the certainty of victory over the dark forces of apartheid," said Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
Makeba spent 31 years in exile after speaking out against apartheid. One of her songs demanded the release of Mandela, who spent 27 years in jail for fighting white-minority rule. She returned home in 1990 on a French passport.
"The disappearance of Miriam Makeba deeply moves me and I share the sadness of her very many admirers in South Africa, France and around the world," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a statement.
"Her disappearance leaves a painful vacuum worthy of her multiple talents and her immense generosity," he added.
Makeba always stressed her African pride through her hairstyles and traditional clothes.
She came from humble beginnings in a shantytown near Johannesburg. The former domestic servant first started to sing in her school choir and learned new songs by listening to recordings of American jazz artists like Ella Fitzgerald

While she won over millions on the stage, Makeba's personal life was marred by tragedy. Makeba had said her first husband often beat her, and she left him after finding him in bed with her sister.
Makeba married American "black power" activist Stokely Carmichael in 1968 and they moved to the West African country of Guinea, but later split. She was divorced four times.
(Additional reporting by Antonella Cinelli in Rome; Editing by


Roy Walker
Pan-African Perspective

R.I.P.

[Langalibalele]

Today there is a hole in my heart.

[nattyreb]

This is the last thing i wanted to read about today, i was just talking about Pata Pata to my son the other day. i pray her transition was peace, bless that beautiful, courageous Sista, she exuded such family love and wonderful warmth. She was/is a great inspiration and will be sorely, greatly missed.

[G.O.D.F.A.T.H.A.]

R.I.U. mama Miriam. I was just playing her album Welela two days ago.

[Africa_SpokesPerson]

I heard the news of her death today during the 7:00 PM news.

Sad news indeed, she was performing in europe I heard, when she died.


I know brothers and sisters who went before her will give her a warm welcome there.

[Sourakhata]

May the ancestors embrace her with their benevolent love...

[MsLioness]

May the Sister be granted a safe passage....

[Elisa Keisha]

RIP Miriam Makeba Mama Afrika.

I know she was smiling when he started her new path. What a courageus warm spirit! She was truly an inspiration for me and many. I have a poster of her in my living, next to her once husband the revolutionary Kwame Ture. May both rest in peace and keep inspiring us as ancestors. and i pray for more like them to come.

My former boss called me today to give me the news, just yesterday she was joking with me because i, so young, was such a big fan of her. and then we sang together "pata pata".

[Seeking Ma'at]

I remember "Hapo Zamani" being my joint. I first heard it about 12 years ago on a mixCD of African female artists my mother brought home. Hapo Zamani was the last track and I kept playing it over, and over, and over, and...y'all get the point.

I remember, too, this past June how hurt I was that she wouldn't be performing at the Detroit Festival of the Arts because she suffered a fall and had to cancel her concert. Even more, I remember praying for her expeditious recovery.

*sigh*
R.I.U., Mama Africa.