Miriam Makeba

1. Sources
2. Mendiola, M (April 2008). Miriam Makeba, biography. The inofficial Miriam Makeba Website. global-mojo.com
3. South African History Online biographies archive.
4. Miriam Makeba. The Leopard man’s African Music Guide. leopardmannen.no
5. Jacobson, G (10 November 2008). South African musical legend Miriam Makeba dies. Mercurynews.com

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Miriam Makeba was born in 1932 in Johannesburg. Her mother was a Swazi sangoma (see note*) and her father was a teacher. Miriam was raised by her grandmother in Pretoria, she loved singing from an early age and always sang at church. She performed her first solo at age 15 during the 1947 Royal visit to South Africa.

From approximately 1950 Makeba sang with her cousin’s band, the Cuban Brothers, but it wasn’t until 1954 when she joined the jazz group the Manhattan Brothers, as a vocalist, that she really began building up a reputation. She toured South Africa, the former Rhodesia and the Congo with the band until 1957. After the Manhattan Brothers she began singing with a girl group, the Skylarks.

Makeba’s appearances in the films Come Back Africa (1957) and as the female lead in King Kong (1959) cemented her reputation in the music industry both locally and abroad.

King Kong was about a boxer who kills his sweetheart and later dies in prison. The musical, publicised as a ‘jazz opera’, was a big success in South Africa. To avoid the apartheid laws that divided the public, the musical was often performed at universities. 

For her small part in Come Back Africa (as a ‘shebeen’ singer singing the titles ‘Lakutshn Ilanga’ and ‘Saduva’), Makeba was flown to the Venice film festival in 1959 so that she could personally receive an award for the movie. The film was a documentary on South Africa made by an American film director, Lionel Togosin.

Makeba got into hot water with the South African authorities that railed against the negative attention they received through the presentation of the film, so Miriam Makeba decided not to return to South Africa from where she got little or nothing in terms of payment for her performances. This resulted in the South African government revoking her passport and denying her the possibility of returning to South Africa. She was the first black musician to leave South Africa on account of apartheid, and over the years many others would follow her, in total she was in exile for 31 years.

Makeba took up refuge in London after the Venice film festival and met Harry Belafonte, who helped her to immigrate to the USA. In the early 1960s it was as though this ‘seemingly shy singer with the lioness like voice’ (as she has been described) shot to fame in the USA overnight. Among her admirers were Marlon Brando, Bette Davis, President J.F. Kennedy, Nina Simone and Miles Davis.

In 1962 she sang in Madison Square gardens for President John F Kennedy, on the same bill as Marilyn Monroe and became the first African recording artist to win a Grammy Award for An Evening with Harry Belafonte in 1965. She was also the first black woman to have a Top-Ten worldwide hit with Pata Pata in 1967. In total, she recorded four albums in the USA.

Makeba said of people imitating her ‘look’:

"I see other black women imitate my style, which is no style at all, but just letting our hair be itself. They call it the Afro Look."

Also during the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement was growing in the USA. Makeba was married to trumpet player and colleague Hugh Masekela for years but they separated and in 1968 Makeba married a leader of the Black Power movement, Stokely Carmichael. This was too much for some of her conservative, white audience in the USA and she got into trouble with the American authorities. So, in 1969, Makeba moved to Guinea (read more about the civil rights movement and the Black Power Movement in the USA).

After moving to Guinea, Makeba managed to find work outside the USA. She toured Europe, South America and Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. During these years she performed mostly in trade union halls, cultural institutions and on other small stages. She also appeared at jazz festivals like the Montreux in Berlin.

Also during this period Makeba addressed the United Nations’ General Assembly twice, speaking out against apartheid and in 1986 she was awarded the Dag Hammerskjold Peace Prize from the Diplomatic Academy for Peace.

But this was not only a time of music and humanitarian work, Makeba was struck with personal heartaches in the 1980s. She separated from Carmichael and her daughter Bongi died tragically. Her biography indicates that she battled cervical cancer and struggled with alcohol.

However, things looked up in 1987 when Makeba was asked to be part of Paul Simon’s world tour called Graceland. Makeba defended Paul Simon's Graceland project, even though it technically violated the cultural boycott of South Africa.

After Graceland Miriam Makeba was in solid demand worldwide again and she went on to perform in front of high ranking listeners e.g. heads of states and the Pope.

Then in 1990 after three decades in exile Makeba was invited back to South Africa by Nelson Mandela, who had just been released from prison.

"It was like a revival," she said about going home. "My music having been banned for so long, that people still felt the same way about me was too much for me. I just went home and I cried."

Once in SA she struggled to find collaborators to produce a record but six years later she finally released the album ‘Homeland’ containing songs describing her joy to be home after the many years in exile.  

In 1997 she embarked on her Farewell Tour and during the same year she appeared in the movie Mama by Veronique Patte Doumbe. In 1998 she toured Africa, the USA and Europe and sold out theatres. In 2002 Makeba stared in Lee Hirsch's opulent and exciting documentary Amandla about the powerful part of music in the struggle against Apartheid.

Makeba has received many honourary doctorates from both local and international academic institutions. The city of Berkeley proclaimed the 16 June to be Miriam Makeba Day and she has received the highest decoration from Tunisia. In 1999, Nelson Mandela presented her with the Presidential Award (see awards for more).

In 2005 Makeba announced her retirement for the mainstream music industry but she continued to make appearances and to do smaller performances.

Throughout her career Makeba insisted that her music was not consciously political in an interview with the British times she said:

"I'm not a political singer… I don't know what the word means. People think I consciously decided to tell the world what was happening in South Africa. No! I was singing about my life, and in South Africa we always sang about what was happening to us - especially the things that hurt us."

Makeba continued her humanitarian work through her Zenzile Miriam Makeba Foundation, including the Miriam Makeba Rehabilitation Centre for (abused) Girls . She also supported campaigns against drug abuse and Aids awareness. Furthermore she appeared as President Mbeki’s Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations.

Makeba died at age 76 of a heart attack that she suffered just after a 30 minute performance at a concert for Roberto Saviano near the southern Italian town of Caserta.

"I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa and the people without even realising," – quote by Miriam Makeba written in her biography (2004)

Note: A sangoma is a practitioner of herbal medicine, divination and counselling in traditional Nguni (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Swazi) societies of Southern Africa.