Miriam Makeba led quite a life: she was the first African woman to win a Grammy. She performed before great political figures of her time, including John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela. When she gave an impassioned speech against apartheid before the United Nations in 1963, the South African government responded by banning her records -- and keeping her in exile from her home country for 31 long years.
Makeba never wanted to be at the center of the world's cultural storms; she simply wanted to sing. But what she chose to sing defined her life and career. She sang traditional songs from her Swazi and Xhosa backgrounds; she sang jazz and township music; she sang of joy and of struggle. Her own and her people's.
At first, Makeba didn't draw the attention of the South African authorities, singing jazz with bands like the Manhattan Brothers and the Skylarks. (She toured internationally with the Manhattan Brothers in 1958-59.) But when she made a short appearance in the 1959 anti-apartheid film Come Back, Africa, everything began to change. South Africa had enacted a series of harsh apartheid measures in 1958, and when Makeba tried to return to the country later that year to bury her mother, she discovered that threats had been made against her life and her passport had been revoked. She would not return to her homeland until 1990, after Nelson Mandela was freed and as the apartheid regime was crumbling.
Makeba also waged battles with discrimination outside of South Africa. Even as she became an international sensation, winning a 1965 Grammy for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba, her personal life earned her censure. When she married Black Panthers leader Stokely Carmichael in 1968, she found many of her contracts and concerts were canceled. She also suffered from a predatory record industry, having unknowingly signed away all her rights to her biggest hit song, 1967's "Pata Pata," which often left her shockingly poor for an artist of such international renown. When her daughter Bondi died in 1985, she was unable to afford a coffin to bury her in.
Yet despite five marriages, a string of misfortunes, the pain of exile, and the occasional political misstep of aligning herself with African dictators, Makeba remained a musical force to reckoned with. It's impossible to overstate her importance to the South African people, who saw her as a voice of liberty during that country's darkest years.
Makeba used to say she would sing until the end of her life, and yesterday that prediction came true: she died of a heart attack after performing at a benefit concert in Italy. She collapsed as she walked off stage, and never returned for an encore. Miriam Makeba, nightingale, Mama Africa, Empress of African Song, we will miss you, deeply -- your joyous voice and the politics you wore so lightly.
- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC.
I just remember her name and her song Pata Pata. Unfortunately I was not keeping abreast of the great historical situation in which I was living with the people of those times. I am sadden to hear that Miriam Makeba has passed away; but back to our lord is where we all must end up. GODSPEED, Miriam Makeba!