"The Voice Of Africa" one of her LPs is named. And when Miriam Makeba sings, her tremendous voice seems to be breaking directly from the innermost of the earth to sling the entire pain of the tortured black African soul out into the world. In South Africa, her home, the Apartheid as a system has been abolished, but the "Imperatrice de la Chanson Africaine" still has to say a lot and still she is performing.
Born in 1932 in Johannesburg, already as a very young woman she could get her name down in South African show business. Around 1950 she sang with her cousin's Cuban Brothers, then from 1954 until 1957 with the popular Manhattan Brothers and finally with a female vocal group called The Skylarks. In 1959 her career received two mighty impulses. First she took over the female lead in the musical "King Kong" and thus became well known all over South Africa. And the deciding push was her appearance - for a few minutes only - in the Anti Apartheid film "Come Back Africa". Her part: In a "shebeen", an illegal meeting joint for blacks, she sang the titles "Lakutshn Ilanga" and "Saduva". For the presentation of the roll at the Venice film festival director Lionel Rogosin had her flown in, so she could personally receive an award for the movie. And with that movie also the voice of Mrs. Makeba went around the world for the first time, making as much impact as the scenes showing the misery of the black South African miners. To return into the Apartheid state thereafter would have endangered her life. And in 1960 she was even officially banned. For 31 long years she lived in forced exile as "a citizen of the world", the last years of this in Belgium, until President Nelson Mandela finally brought her back home to South Africa in December of 1990.

But first Harry Belafonte organized a US visa for her, and barely arrived in New York, she conquered the audience in a storm. Among her admirers were Marlon Brando, Bette Davis and President Kennedy as well as Nina Simone and Miles Davis. Originally rather shy, she grew up slowly to fill her new role as Everybody's Darling. Suddenly and overwhelmingly the new status came to this South African Lady who - just a few months before - was used to experience the humiliations of Apartheid at the Cape. Now abroad she had become a celebrity overnight.
This slender black beauty with the voice of a lioness and her unspoilt, almost childlike charm was bound to become a sensation in the otherwise rather slick entertainment world of the USA. And especially America's Blacks, just busy enforcing their own struggle for civil rights and rediscovering the African roots of their culture, picked up with equal sympathy and enthusiasm as well on her songs - mostly from South Africa - as on her determined attitude against Apartheid.
But the shine only lasted for merely ten years. After getting married to the profiled Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael in 1968, she became a persona non grata in the USA. As a guest in the country, Miriam had consciously and strictly avoided to interfere in the inner American race conflicts in public, but anyway: Yesterday's shooting star was boycotted mercilessly by promoters and radio stations.
Meanwhile Sékou Touré, at that time President of Guinea, had issued her a diplomat's passport. Other African leaders and also Fidel Castro later followed his example. Makeba made use of this option in 1969 and settled in Conakry on the West African coast. From there she started out on her tours, appeared twice as ambassador extraordinary in front of the UNO General Assembly and fulfilled further diplomatic missions - always imbued by her fight against racism and for a unified Africa, independent from postcolonial interests. Still her attitude met with considerable disapproval of the entertainment industry, and sometimes you could really have the impression that she was enjoying the sympathies of certain political powers too naively and with too little distance. But despite all this: As a singer and as a diplomat she more and more became the one distinguished voice of the people of the entire black continent.
Those were the years, during which - outside of Africa - she performed mostly in trade union halls, cultural institutions and on other small stages and some festivals. In December of 1981 a much acclaimed concert at Carnegie Hall in New York seemed to ring in a comeback, but shortly thereafter silence fell around her. Personal strokes of fate afflicted her: The breaking of her marriage with Carmichael - her third marriage already - and the tragic death of her daughter Bongi, like Miriam a fantastic singer and a gifted songwriter on top of it. But featured in Paul Simon's Graceland tour in 1987 Miriam could celebrate her triumphant return into the great concert halls of the world. With her album "Sangoma" (WEA) - "sangoma" meaning "magician", "healer" - she set yet another milestone in her career by not merging the traditional songs of her home with elements from Jazz, Soul and Pop as usual but presenting them pure and unadulterated, so to speak. A risk, WEA probably granted to her encouraged by the success the Mbube vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo was having - also with Paul Simon and also on WEA.
Contained attention was roused in the media by her autobiography "My Story" (New American Library, NY 1988), in which she documented the ups and downs of her life in a plain and simple yet all the more insistent language. I was also interested in what's not in the book. Shortly after it was issued in Germany I had a chance to talk to her about it, and fortunately - from previous meetings with me - she trusted me enough to talk about it at all even though her comments were restrained. So, for instance, I asked her about Sékou Touré, about whom it was known time before his death, that even in independent Guinea and under its first black President there had been considerable violations of human rights. Miriam answered me that Touré had always been treating her personally with brotherly solicitousness, and that she, as a guest of a country, was not entitled to interfere in its inner affairs. And while speaking she gave me a long sad look. Imagine her moral conflicts: She, a woman in banishment and exile, who was forced to accept the hospitality of a foreign country, right therefore and at the same time was partly silenced in her most urgent and holy concern: the universal human rights. And not enough with this. Not for no reason she left Guinea again after Touré's death 1984, I figure. When the succeeding government officially confirmed his misdemeanours, Miriam in her host country possibly and tragically might have even been suspected as a traitor to her own cause and a collaborator of a despot. And this in her "own" native Africa.
May these today be the shadows of the past, but as we know they will never quite leave you alone. At any rate, ever since Graceland Miriam Makeba stayed in solid demand worldwide, performed at first addresses and in front of high ranking listeners such as a whole string of heads of states plus the Pope. In 1997 she embarked on her "Farewell Tour", with a voice as grand as ever, yet with curbed temperament. Her years were slowly beginning to show. But she didn't keep it at the farewell. During the same year she appeared in the movie "Mama" by Veronique Patte Doumbe, and just in 1998 she combed Africa, the USA and Europe: sold out theatres most all along the way, TV appearances and everything.
Her recordings are - depending on the producers - of varying quality. And it is pretty hard to look through a thicket of albums, most of which are compilations of previously released songs and/or various takes of the same songs. Among her highlights from her US time rank the LPs "Pata Pata" (Reprise) - including the original take of her single hit "Pata Pata" from 1967 -, "Forbidden Games" and "The Voice Of Africa" (both RCA). Besides the not quite so harmless dance tune - "Pata Pata" means "touch, touch" - you will find handpicked pearls of Afro-Soul on these three albums like "Westwind" written by Bongi Makeba, "Piece Of Ground", the "Click Song" and "Kilimandjaro". Two outstanding productions came in the seventies: The vivid "Appel A L'Afrique" (Syliphone), cut live in Conakry and including the tender love song "Maleika" which has long advanced to be the unofficial Panafrican National Anthem, plus "African Convention" (pläne), congenially produced by her country fellow and ex-husband Hugh Masekela. Much to be recommended also the above mentioned "Sangoma" (WEA). I further mention the album "Welela" (Polydor) because it includes the song "A Luta Continua", Miriam's dedication to Mozambique, which has been a regular in her concerts for decades but never was published on record before. On "Miriam Makeba & The Skylarks" (Kaz Records) and on "The Very Best Of The Manhattan Brothers" (Stern's Africa, 2 CDs), both issued in the early nineties, you can listen to the South African beginnings of Mariam Makeba in the fifties, the time before her exile. Highly interesting! Extra attention is demanded when meeting the reissues on Goya CDs because you have a little bit of a topsy-turvy muddle here. The LP "Country Girl" surfaces as a CD under the title "Meet Me At The River" and is identical with the original. "Malaisha" is a new edition of "African Convention", offering the original takes plus a bonus track. Identical with the LP "A Promise" is the CD of the same title. On the CD "Kilimandjaro" you partly hear original takes from the LP "Appel A L'Afrique". But also some second rate takes are mixed in here which are not from the original album. Be especially careful with the CD "Pata Pata". It is not identical with the Reprise-LP of the same title and it does not give the original hit version of "Pata Pata". The latter was reissued only recently on Warner and in parallel on Collectables. If you follow the hint "recommended" in my discography of Miriam, you can compile her repertoire of original recordings in a well aimed manner.
Rather confusing, this large conglomeration of original releases, best of albums, reissues, retrospectives, new compilations and very best of albums. But that's the way it is with more than 50 records scattered on more than 20 labels, not all of them published worldwide, listed in various sources with partly wrong or doubtful release dates and most certainly never complete - not even in my work, I fear.
So what?! She kept on traveling and singing, with her granddaughter Zenzi Lee in her background choir and great-grandson Lindelani in her entourage. She kept on appearing in movies, as in Lee Hirsch's opulent and exciting documentary "Amandla!" (2002) about the powerful part of music in the struggle against Apartheid. And she kept on receiving awards, not only for her achievements as a singer (like the Grammy and The Polar Music Prize) but also for her humanitarian commitments (like the Dag Hammerskjøld Peace Prize and the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold).

Then, on September 26th 2005 she announced that after one more final tour she would really and definitely withdraw from all activities in the music business, and she gave her last concert for years at the 18th Africa Festival in Würzburg/Germany on May 5th 2006. Only for the 42nd Brighton Festival in May 2008 she could be convinced to appear on stage once more – for a single and exclusive gig.

Yet, this doesn’t mean that the great Miriam Makeba is now inactive. Especially after her return home and despite some disillusionments there, "Mama Africa" is determined to live up to her title of honor. So she keeps on taking care of her Zenzile Miriam Makeba Foundation, including the Miriam Makeba Rehabilitation Centre For (abused, ed.) Girls. She also supports campaigns against consuming drugs and the spreading further of Aids. Furthermore she appears as President Mbeki’s Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations.

And another comprehensive biographical volume has been issued. “The Miriam Makeba Story” by Miriam Makeba in conversation with Nomsa Mwamuka (Johannesburg 2004, ISBN 1-919855-39-4), especially interesting because it also covers her homecoming to South Africa and her experience and activities right there, which were still in the future, when the above mentioned “My Story” (still available) came out. It also presents plenty of previously unpublished pictures from Miriam’s private collection. "Masakhane", one of her songs, means: "Let's build together!" This is, what she is doing right now, and after all, this is what she has been standing for as an artist and as a person for her entire life.

© copyright photos (Miriam Makeba & Zenzi Lee) and text by Mojo Mendiola, March 2003 & April 2008
© copyright photo Bongi Makeba by Makeba Archive 1987, taken from her book "My Story / Homeland Blues"

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