THE BIG READ Miriam Makeba: the legendary

Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 - 9 November 2008) was a South African singer and civil rights activist.

The Grammy Award winning afrobeat artist is often referred to as Mama Afrika.Zenzile Miriam Makeba was born in Johannesburg in 1932.

Her mother was a Swazi sangoma and her father, who died when she was six, was a Xhosa. As a child, she sang at the Kilmerton Training Institute in Pretoria, which she attended for eight years.

Makeba first toured with an amateur group. Her professional career began in the 1950s with the Manhattan Brothers, before she formed her own group, The Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional melodies of South Africa.

In 1959, she performed in the musical King Kong alongside Hugh Masekela, her future husband. Though she was a successful recording artist, she was only receiving a few dollars for each recording session and no provisional royalties, and was keen to go to the US.

Her break came when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa in 1959 by independent filmmaker Lionel Rogosin. She attended the premiere of the film at the Venice Film Festival.

Exile

Makeba then travelled to London where she met Harry Belafonte, who assisted her in gaining entry to and fame in the United States.

She released many of her most famous hits there including "Pata Pata", "The Click Song" ("Qongqothwane" in Xhosa), and "Malaika". In 1966, Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording together with Harry Belafonte for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba. The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid.

She discovered that her South African passport was revoked when she tried to return there in 1960 for her mother's funeral. In 1963, after testifying against apartheid before the United Nations, her South African citizenship and her right to return to the country were revoked.

She has had nine passports, ] and was granted honorary citizenship of ten countries. Her marriage to Trinidadian civil rights activist and Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee leader Stokely Carmichael in 1968 caused controversy in the United States, and her record deals and tours were cancelled.

As a result of this, the couple moved to Guinea, where they became close with President Ahmed Sékou Touré and his wife. Makeba separated from Carmichael in 1973, and continued to perform primarily in Africa, South America and Europe.

She was one of the African and Afro-American entertainers at the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman held in Zaïre. Makeba also served as a Guinean delegate to the United Nations, for which she won the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize in 1986.

After the death of her only daughter Bongi Makeba in 1985, she moved to Brussels. In 1987, she appeared in Paul Simon's Graceland tour. Shortly thereafter she published her autobiography Makeba: My Story (ISBN 0-453-00561-6).

Return to South Africa

Nelson Mandela persuaded her to return to South Africa in 1990. In November 1991, she made a guest appearance in an episode of The Cosby Show, in the episode "Olivia Comes Out Of The Closet".

In 1992 she starred in the film Sarafina!, about the 1976 Soweto youth uprisings, as the title character's mother, "Angelina." She also took part in the 2002 documentary Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony where she and others recalled the days of apartheid.

In January 2000, her album, Homeland, produced by Cedric Samson and Michael Levinsohn was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Best World Music" categoryIn 2001 she was awarded the Gold Otto Hahn Peace Medal by the United Nations

Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin, "for outstanding services to peace and international understanding". In 2002, she shared the Polar Music Prize with Sofia Gubaidulina. In 2004, Makeba was voted 38th in the Top 100 Great South Africans.

Makeba started a worldwide farewell tour in 2005, holding concerts in all of those countries that she had visited during her working life.
Her publicist notes that Makeba had suffered "severe arthritis" for some time.

Death

On 9 November 2008, she became ill while taking part in a concert organized to support writer Roberto Saviano in his stand against the Camorra a mafia-like organisation local to the Region of Campania.

The concert was being held in Castel Volturno, near Caserta, Italy. Perhaps angry about immigrant drug dealers cutting in on their turf in general, members of the local Camorra shot and killed six immigrants of African descent who were working in a store selling ethnic products in Castel Volturno on September 18, 2008.

Violent riots erupted among immigrants and locals prompting Italy's Minister of the Interior to dispatch 400 law enforcement agents to help keep the peace in Castelvolturno as well as other affected areas in the province of Caserta. Organizers and construction workers working on Miriam Makeba's last concert in Castel Volturno were threatened by members of the Camorra to pay 2000 euros for the anti-Camorra concert to go on without incident;Carabinieri police officers were called to ensure safety during the concert.

Makeba suffered a heart attack after singing her hit song "Pata Pata", and was taken to the "Pineta Grande" hospital. Doctors were unable to revive her. When Miriam Makeba arrived at Pineta Grande Clinic she was surrounded by her entourage.

She seemed to be feeling better, however, after drinking some cognac she suffered a second heart attack. In his condolence message, former South African president Nelson Mandela said 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."

In Memoriam: Miriam Makeba

I first heard Miriam Makeba sing in 1987, 27 years after the South African government forbade her to do so.

Rather, they barred Paul Simon from bringing his Graceland concert tour to their country -- so Simon, Makeba, and others sang from the border of neighboring Zimbabwe,

massive loudspeakers projecting their music to thousands of South Africans who stood cheering under the sun, and millions of people like me, glued to their TV sets thousands of miles away.

Makeba sang one of my favorite songs off of Graceland, a duet with Paul Simon, "Under African Skies," and I though to myself, what a cool dame.
I didn't know the half of it.

Makeba, 76, died Sunday 9th November,2008 evening after collapsing on stage while performing a concert to benefit a threatened Italian journalist. Dubbed "Mama Africa" by her adoring fans, Makeba was more than just a voice for her homeland.

She was a musical emissary on a mission to abolish apartheid, a civil rights activist up to last waking minutes of her five-decade career (though she always resisted the "political singer" label), a longtime exile from her homeland, and a symbol of an oppressed people.

Though she was well-versed in jazz, folk, and pop music, she introduced the music of South Africa to many people across the globe, most famously with her song, "Pata Pata," which became a Stateside hit in 1967.

She toured with Harry Belafonte in the 1960s and won a Grammy award with him for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba. In 1962, she sang at the birthday party of President John F. Kennedy.

Thirty years later, Ms. Makeba starred alongside Whoopi Goldberg in Sarafina!, a film about the 1976 Soweto youth uprisings. For many young folks who never knew apartheid, it was a shocking introduction to a society that existed less than two decades ago.

Thanks to Makeba and people like her, that reign of terror is no more. In his condolence message, former South African president Nelson Mandela said it was "fitting that her last moments were spent on a stage, enriching the hearts and lives of others." RIP, Mama Africa.