Leadership (Abuja)
Raliat Ahmed
11 November 2008
Abuja — South Africa was yesterday thrown into shock and mourning following the death of South African singing legend, Miriam Makeba.
Miriam, died in the early hours of the morning yesterday in Castel Volturno, near Caserta, Italy of heart attack, shortly after taking part in a concert organised to support writer, Robert Saviano in his stand against the Camora, a mafia organisation.
Makeba was born in Johannesburg on March 4, 1932 and was a leading symbol in the struggle against apartheid. She came to international attention in 1959 during a tour of the United States with the South African group, the Mahanthan Brothers.
Makeba was the first black African woman to win a Grammy award, which she shared with Harry Belafonte in 1965.
She was an African singer who wooed the world with her sultry voice but was banned from her own country "One of the greatest songstresses of our time has ceased to sing," Foreign Affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said in a statement.
"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 and colonialism through the art of song."
She appeared on Paul Simon's Graceland tour in 1987 and in 1992 had a leading role in the film Sarafina.
Makeba wrote in her 1987 memoirs that friends and relatives who first encouraged her to perform compared her voice to that of a nightingale. With her distinctive style combining jazz with folk with South African township rhythms, she was often called "The Empress of African Song."
She first started singing in Sophiatown, a cosmopolitan neighborhood of Johannesburg that was a cultural hotspot in the 1950s before its black residents were forcibly removed by the apartheid government.
She then teamed up with South African jazz trumpeter, Hugh Masekela, who later became her first husband. Her rise to nternational prominence started when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary "Come Back, Africa" in 1959.
When she tried to fly home for her mother's funeral the following year, she discovered her passport had been revoked. It was 30 years before she was allowed to return.
Thanks to her close relationship with Belafonte, she received star status in the United States and performed for President John F. Kennedy at his birthday party in 1962. But she fell briefly out of favour when she married black power activist, Stokely Carmichael and moved to Guinea in the late 1960s. After three decades abroad, Makeba was invited back to South Africa by anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela shortly after his release from prison in 1990 as white racist rule crumbled.
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I am glad to have known Momma Africa's music/activism. She truly was a Queen! She made me feel proud growing up as a young person in the struggle. A woman of courage, power and beauty! She will always be loved and remembered! Thank GOD for letting the world know such a wonderful human being. Rest in peace.
The Gate Keeper