Miriam Makeba, 76, Singer and Activist, Dies

[Are_grits_groceries]

Source: NYT

LONDON — Miriam Makeba, a South African singer whose voice stirred hopes of freedom in her own country even though her music was formally banned by the apartheid authorities she struggled against, died early Monday after performing at a concert in Italy. She was 76.

The Associated Press quoted hospital authorities as saying she died following a heart attack after being brought to a hospital in Castel Voltumo near Naples in southern Italy. She had been singing at a concert in support of Robert Saviano, an author who has received death threats after writing about organized crime.

She was widely known as “Mama Africa” and had been a prominent exiled opponent of apartheid since the South African authorities revoked her passport in 1960 and refused to allow her to return after she traveled abroad. She was prevented from attending her mother’s funeral after touring in the United States.

For 31 years, Ms. Makeba lived in exile, variously in the United States, France, Guinea and Belgium. South Africa’s state broadcasters banned her music after she spoke out against apartheid at the United Nations in 1976 — the year of the Soweto uprising that accelerated the demands of the black majority for democratic change.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/world/africa/11makeba.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[LeftishBrit]

1. RIP. I am so sorry to hear this.

[DFW]

2. I had the pleasure of seeing her in person twice

Once back in the 1960s when Harry Belafonte introduced her to America, taking
her with him on tour, and then 30 years later in Germany when she accompanied
Paul Simon after he introduced South African popular music to the world with
his Graceland album and tour.

There has never been anyone like her since.

[Judi Lynn]

3. So sad to learn she has gone. No one like her, never will be.

Videos of several of her songs:
Miriam Makeba - Khawuleza 1966
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V74f9eIi9c0

Oxgam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1YKOk9QA8U

Emabhaceni
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-V08N2D2KA

Paul Simon & Miriam Makeba
(Under African Skies)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB26L8nbRiw&feature=related

or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLVhjdzEszU

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Oh NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!!

:cry:

As a child of the '60s, my parents played her records in our household. That was my first exposure to the "click language" of southern Africa where one of the songs on the album from a live performance had her describing and demonstrating the sounds of it to the audience before she sang. I was totally fascinated by it. As a young child then, I didn't understand much of the politics of what was happening in her home country but only knew that despite that, she was a famous South African singer. I did have the luck of seeing Nelson Mandela here in Philadelphia when he was awarded the Liberty Medal back in the '90s and spoke at the Civic Center here (which has since been torn down). But by then fully understood what he, Makeba, and so many others had gone through in their native land.

God bless you Miriam Makeba and R.I.P.

[No Elephants]

5. I am very sorry. But did she really live in exile for 31 years? Mandela would not let her back in?

Close enough, I guess.

[dipsydoodle]

7. You've got that back to front

Read up here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Makeba

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Exile started 1960, or maybe technically before

Makeba first came to international prominence when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa in 1959.

In 1960, when she tried to fly home for her mother's funeral, she discovered her passport had been revoked. She then spent more than three decades in exile, living in the United States and Guinea.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/3415306/South-African-folk-singer-Miriam-Makeba-dies.html

[No Elephants]

10. Thank you. I mis-read the year in the OP. My vision is not great. Neither are my glasses.

[Dangerously Amused]

6. A very sad day. An extraordinary woman, a tremendous talent. She will be missed.

"Pata Pata" never failed to make me smile and dance.

Love, respect and gratitude to you, MM.

[Kind of Blue]

9. Oh, my God. What incredibly sad news to wake up to.

My parents were a very young African couple when we immigrated here in the late '60s and her albums were touchstones to the continent for lots of dancing or just being moved to silence and just listen. I will surely miss her presence in the world.
RIP Miriam, you did well.

[NashVegas]

11. I Was Just Coming to Post This.

Recommended:

[Bluenorthwest]

12. A presence like no other

On stage she was like a goddess. Her being was electric her voice was eternal. She carried love in her every movement and note. She made me feel the future of our planet somehow.

[mt13]

13. very sad...

RIP

[xchrom]

14. may Peace be with her friends and family. -- very sad -- i so loved her music. nt

[HamdenRice]

15. One of my best friends was back up singer for her for one of her world tours

and stayed in touch with her.

And from what she was telling me a few months ago, this wasn't unexpected by people who knew her. She had fallen into a very serious drinking problem, and at her age that's hard on the body.

She had both a wonderful life and one of the most difficult and painful lives imaginable.

There is a moment in the film, "Come Back, Africa," perhaps the strangest and most wonderful in all of African cinema, in which this supposedly fictional film wanders into a Johannesburg shebeen (illegal black bar), and there, the cream of the crop of South African writers happen to be sitting around talking. Writer Can Themba spontaneously gives this amazing monologue about South Africa, and then turns to a young woman and says something like, won't you sing us a song, Miriam? And it's an incredibly young Miriam Makeba who then just rocks the movie. That's how she was discovered by the "outside" world. When she attended a film festival overseas, the South African government revoked her passport and she was left in exile for the next several decades.

[Judi Lynn]

17. What a shame her life took that direction. She seemed so vibrant as a young woman.

Idealistic, too, in my view.

Feeling very sad to hear your news about the last part. I hope she was well aware, however, how many, many people loved her all over the world.

Very cool you've known one of her singers, HamdenRice! Amazing music.

[progressoid]

16. N'Kosi Sikeleli Africa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow40LQs0ue4

[Judi Lynn]

18. Thanks for posting this link. Wonderful. n/t