Miriam Makeba, who passed away on November 9, 2008 at the age of 76, was a Grammy Award-winning South African singer, also known as Mama Afrika.
Born Miriam Zenzi Makeba in Johannesburg in 1932, she was maternally Swazi and paternally Xhosa. Her father died when she was only six. Her mother was a Swazi priestess.
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 artiste, 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.
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She discovered that her South African passport was revoked when she tried to return there in 1960 for her mother's funeral.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 Black Panthers 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 Sekou Toure 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 Congo-Kinshasa.
Makeba also served as a Guinean delegate to the United Nations, for which she won the Dag Hammarskjold 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.
Nelson Mandela persuaded her to return to South Africa in 1990.
In 1991, she made a guest appearance in an episode of The Cosby Show, titled 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 2000, her album, Homeland, produced by Cedric Samson and Michael Levinsohn was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best World Music category.
In 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.
(Thanks to Wikipedia for information on Miriam Makeba).
