(By Solomon Mahoi, [Pseudonym, Abck Obba])
August 27, 2024
Known throughout the world as "Mama Africa" and also as the "Empress of African Song," Miriam Makeba was a true superstar whose vocal prowess in the art of singing made her the first Afro-singer to place Africa on the sphere of international music in the 1960s.
She was born Zenzile Miriam Makeba on March 4, 1932, in Johannesburg South Africa, and she passed away on November 9, 2008, in Castel Volturno, Italy, at age 76.
Makeba loved the church from an early age, and it was in the church where she performed her first solo in 1947, during a royal visit. But her music career officially began when she started singing for her cousin's band, the Cuban Brothers, and several years later her standing prestige began to soar when she started singing for the Manhattan Brothers in 1954, a popular South African singing group in the 1940s and 1950s, during the apartheid era.
After touring with the Manhattan Brothers for three years, Makeba then began singing for an all-female group known as the Skylarks, which performances combined jazz and traditional African melodies.
She recorded four albums in the United States, including the "Click" song also known as Qogothwane. She was also the first black woman to have a Top10 global hit in 1967, for the song "Pata Pata." And after 31 years in exile, and at the encouragement of the late President Nelson Mandela for her to return to South Africa, Makeba produced an album entitled "Homecoming," and in 1999 President Mandela honoured her with a presidential award.
She also collaborated with the now deceased Harry Belafonte, on an album that was produced in 1965 called "An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba." And like most music artists whose individualities hardly go unnoticed during their performances as well as in the lyrics of the songs they write, however, Makeba's was misunderstood for decades, on grounds that her songs are politically motivated thereby causing her songs to be banned in South Africa during the apartheid era. But she remained true to herself, being the best she could be at a time when misunderstood controversies plagued her world directly.
On that note, continue to rest in perpetual peace, Zenzile Miriam Makeba, our esteemed "Mama Africa" and our "Empress of African Song."
~ PS: Please follow this link to read more on her incredible musical story. https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-makeba
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