20 November 2008
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Lagos — While she lived, Zenzile Miriam Makeba, Africa's foremost musician and respected anti-apartheid campaigner, often said that she would sing until the last day of her life.
Last week in Castlevolturno near Naples in Italy, that wish was fulfilled. After singing a couple of her hit songs and ending with "Pata Pata" at an anti-mafia, anti-racism concert, the maestro, popularly called Mama Africa, blew kisses to her appreciative and adoring audience and thanked them with her usual luxuriant smile. On her way out of the stage, she placed her microphone on the drum. Downstairs, she collapsed but, sadly, she could not be revived.
Another legend and former South African President, Nelson Mandela, put the end of the "Empress of African Song" succinctly: "Her last moments were spent on a stage enriching the hearts and lives of others - and again, in support of a good cause."
The mega stardom Makeba achieved while on earth and the unanimous and sweeping eulogies that have trailed her demise across the globe are products of her selfless, brave and sacrificial life. Her history has been made even more endearing by the fact that she chose that path early - when it was not fashionable to do so.
She started her singing career in 1950 with the Cuban Brothers and later joined the Manhattan Brothers who entertained crowds in South Africa, old Rhodesia and Congo until 1957. In 1959, after starring in a musical film titled "King Kong," Makeba accepted a major role in a film that exposed the evils of white minority rule in South Africa. The film was very successful at the Venice Festival that year. The obnoxious regime in Pretoria, embarrassed by the negative reaction her outing attracted to it, revoked her passport in 1960.
That made her the first black artiste to go on exile on account of the racial discrimination in South Africa. She was not allowed to attend her mother's funeral in South Africa in 1960 and after testifying against apartheid at the United Nations in 1963, her South African citizenship and right of return were revoked altogether. But her activism had gained worldwide endorsement and had enabled her to obtain nine passports and honorary citizenship of 10 countries.
While in the United States in the 1960s, Makeba released most of her popular songs including "The Click Song," "Pata Pata" and "Malaika". In 1966, "An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba," an album that portrayed the predicament of blacks in her home country, won her a Grammy Award.
But her marriage to a civil rights activist, Stokely Carmichael, in 1968, caused controversy in the U.S. that led to the cancellation of her recording pacts and tours. She then moved to Guinea from where she continued to travel around the world, particularly Africa, Europe and South America. As she did, she spread her themes of the brotherhood of humanity, originality of the black race and the sanctity of human existence. Her recognition and acceptance in Guinea culminated in her being chosen by that country as its delegate to the United Nations. Twice, in that capacity, she addressed the General Assembly, and further exposed the atrocities of the repressive regime in South Africa. Makeba's human rights crusade fetched her the prestigious Dag Hammerskjold Peace Prize in 1986. It also did much later in 2001 when she was awarded the Gold Otto Hahn Peace Medal by the United Nations Association of Germany in Berlin.
At Mandela's persuasion, in 1990 she returned to South Africa, her land of birth that she had gallantly fought for in her three decades of absence. Two years later, she was a key actress in "Sarafina," the award-winning film based on the tragic 1976 Soweto youth uprising. She also featured prominently in a documentary, "Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony", that revisited the traumatic days of apartheid.
Like a farmer who sowed good seeds, for devoting herself to the cause of the oppressed and for being a source of hope and illumination via the instrumentality of the performing arts, Makeba continued to harvest laurels and international acclamation even towards the twilight of her eventful life.
Three years ago, the late Makeba began a transcontinental farewell tour to crown a career that had impacted greatly on the conscience of the world. "I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became the voice and image of Africa, and the people, without even realising it", the indomitable lady of songs confessed in her biography. That could well be her epitaph. Adieu, Miriam Makeba.
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