Miriam Makeba

 

“There are three things I was born with in this world, and there are three things I will have until the day I die-hope, determination, and song.”

 

Zenzile Miriam Makeba (1932 – 2008), aka “Mama Africa,  was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, UN goodwill ambassador, and civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.

Zenzile was born in the black township of Prospect, near Johannesburg. Her Swazi mother, Christina Makeba, was a sangoma (traditional healer) and domestic worker. Her Xhosa father, Caswell Makeba, was a teacher, but sadly died when she was just six years old. She earned her name from the fact that her mother had been warned that any future pregnancy could be fatal and that this seemed highly probably during her difficult labour, during which her grandmother often muttered "uzenzile", a Xhosa word that means "you brought this on yourself" (so great to have such a caring and supportive mother by your side at such a difficult moment!)

When Makeba was eighteen days old, her mother was arrested and sentenced to a six-month prison term for selling umqombothi, a homemade beer brewed from malt and cornmeal. Her family could not afford to bail her out and thus Miriam spent the first six months of her life in jail. However, her childhood improved and she sang in the choir at her school and church. Here, she sang in English, Xhosa, Sotho, and Zulu; she later said that she learned to sing in English before she could speak the language.

After her father’s death, Makeba’s family moved to Transvaal where she was forced to find work as a nanny, despite her shy personality. Her mother was forced to live apart from her six children, working for white families in Johannesburg. Instead, Makeba lived for a while with her grandmother and a large number of cousins in Pretoria. Makeba inherited her musical genes from her family; mother played several traditional instruments, she learned songs from black artists such as Ella Fitzgerald from her older brother, and her father played the piano. Thus, she was not as afraid as she may have been to embark on an unreliable career in music.

In 1949, Makeba married James Kubay, a policeman in training, with whom she had her only child, Bongi Makeba, in 1950. Makeba was then diagnosed with breast cancer, and her husband, who was said to have beaten her, left her shortly afterwards, after a two-year marriage (what a fucking gentleman). A decade later she overcame cervical cancer via a hysterectomy.

“Age is getting to know all the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the world the way you want, you can at least get out of the way so you won't get run over.”

 

Makeba began her professional musical career with the Cuban Brothers, a South African all-male close harmony group, with whom she sang covers of popular American songs. Soon afterwards, at the age of 21, she became the only female member of a jazz group, the Manhattan Brothers, who sang a mixture of South African songs and pieces from popular African American groups. It was with this group she recorded her first hit, "Laku Tshoni Ilanga", in 1953, and developed a national reputation as a musician. In 1956 she joined a new all-woman group, the Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional South African melodies. Despite the popularity of the group, Makeba received no royalties from her work with the Skylarks.

In 1955, Makeba met Nelson Mandela, then a young lawyer; he later recalled their meeting saying that then he felt he met a girl who "was going to be someone." In 1956, Gallotone Records released "Lovely Lies", Makeba's first solo success. However, the Xhosa lyric about a man looking for his beloved in jails and hospitals was replaced with the unrelated and innocuous line "You tell such lovely lies with your two lovely eyes" in the English version. The record became the first South African record to chart on the United States Billboard Top 100. Impressive, but frustrating.

“I look at a stream and I see myself: a native South African, flowing irresistibly over hard obstacles until they become smooth and, one day, disappear - flowing from an origin that has been forgotten toward an end that will never be.”

 

In 1959, Makeba sang the lead female role in the Broadway-inspired South African jazz opera King Kong. Unusually, the musical was performed to racially integrated audiences, which bolstered her profile in South Africa. Also in 1959, she had a short guest appearance in Come Back, Africa, an anti-apartheid which integrated elements of documentary and fiction and had to be filmed in secret to avoid government persecution. Despite her appearance lasting only four minutes, her cameo an enormous impression and she was granted a visa to attend the premiere in Venice where it won the Critic’s Choice Award.  Makeba's presence has been described as crucial to the film, as an emblem of cosmopolitan black identity that also connected with working-class black people due to the dialogue being in Zulu.

Makeba's role in Come Back, Africa brought her international recognition and she travelled to London and New York to perform. Her first recorded solos included "Pata Pata",[b] which would be released many years later, and a version of the traditional Xhosa song "Qongqothwane", which she had first performed with the Skylarks. Though "Pata Pata"—described by Musician magazine as a "groundbreaking Afropop gem"—became her most famous song, Makeba described it as "one of my most insignificant". While in England recording these songs, she married Sonny Pillay, a South African ballad singer of Indian descent. It was not to last, and they divorced within a few months.

After her divorce, Makeba moved to New York, making her US music debut on 1 November 1959 on The Steve Allen Show in LA to a television audience of 60 million. Her reputation grew owing to popular performances in jazz clubs and by mixing with other musicians and actors. Nonetheless, she struggled financially and worked as a babysitter to supplement her income.

“I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.”

Shortly following the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 (which killed two members of her family), Makeba’s mother passed away. When she tried to return home for the funeral, she found that her South African passport had been cancelled. She was greatly concerned for her remaining family in South Africa – including her daughter whom she brought to the US aged 9 in August 1960. In the early years of her American career, Makeba’s music was rarely political. However,  her popularity did help increase awareness of apartheid. After the Sharpeville incident, Makeba felt a responsibility to help, aware of the privilege that she had in being able to s she had been able to leave the country while others had not. From this point, she became an increasingly outspoken critic of apartheid and the white-minority government; before the massacre, she had taken care to avoid overtly political statements in South Africa.

Her musical career in the US continued to flourish, and she released her self-titled first album in 1960s. However, Makeba was unable to perform in South Africa and received no money for her album despite her record receiving US$45,000. The album included one of her most famous hits in the US, "Qongqothwane", which was known in English as "The Click Song" because Makeba's audiences could not pronounce the Xhosa name (ugh, white people). She was described as having: "the smoky tones and delicate phrasing" of Ella Fitzgerald and the "intimate warmth" of Frank Sinatra. Her South African identity had been downplayed during her first signing, but she signed with a new label who appreciated the growing interest in African culture took advantage and emphasised it. In 1962, Makeba and sang at the birthday party for US President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden. She was unable to attend the after party due to ill health, but JFK was so keen to meet her that he sent a car to bring her to him.

"I have one thing in common with the emerging black nations of Africa: We both have voices, and we are discovering what we can do with them."

In 1964, Makeba released her second studio album for RCA Victor, The World of Miriam Makeba. An early example of world music, the album peaked at number eighty-six on the Billboard 200. Makeba's music had a cross-racial appeal in the US; white Americans were attracted to her image as an "exotic" African performer, and black Americans related their own experiences of racial segregation to Makeba's struggle against apartheid. Makeba found company among other African exiles and émigrés in New York, including her third husband, Hugh Masekela, to whom she was married from 1963 to 1968. She became friends with big names including Marlon Brando, Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles and Nina Simone. Thus, Makeba spen a large deal of her time in the company of black entertainers, activists, and intellectuals in New York at the time who believed that the civil rights movement and popular culture could reinforce each other, creating "a sense of intertwined political and cultural vibrancy". She later compared her experiences of living in South Africa and the US: "There wasn't much difference in America; it was a country that had abolished slavery but there was apartheid in its own way."

Makeba's music was also popular in Europe, and she travelled and performed there frequently. She added songs from Latin America, Europe, Israel, and elsewhere in Africa to her repertoire. However, as well as touring and performing she also became increasingly politically active. In 1962, she visited Kenya and offered financial support to their independence from British colonial rule. Later that year she testified before the UN Special Committee against Apartheid about the effects of the system, asking for economic sanctions against South Africa's National Party government. She also requested an arms embargo against South Africa, claiming that weapons sold to the government would likely be used against black women and children. Consequently, her music was banned in South Africa and her citizenship was revoked – rendering her a stateless person. However, she was soon issued passports by Algeria, Guinea, Belgium and Ghana. In her life, she held nine passports, and was granted honorary citizenship in ten countries.

Soon after her testimony, Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, invited her to sing at the inauguration of the Organisation of African Unity, the only performer to be invited. As the fact of her ban from South Africa became well known she became a cause célébre for Western liberals, and her presence in the civil rights movement provided a link between that movement and the anti-apartheid struggle.

“I ask you and all the leaders of the world: Would you act differently, would you keep silent and do nothing if you were in our place? Would you not resist if you were allowed no rights in your own country because the color of your skin is different to that of the rulers, and if you were punished for even asking for equality? I appeal to you, and through you to all the countries of the world, to do everything you can to stop the coming tragedy. I appeal to you to save the lives of our leaders, to empty the prisons of all those who should never have been there.”

Throughout the 1960s, Makeba strengthened her involvement with a range of black-centred political movements, including the civil rights, anti-apartheid, Black Consciousness, and Black Power movements. She briefly met the black activist Stokely Carmichael—leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a prominent figure in the Black Panther Party – at one of her concerts. Six years later, they entered a secret relationship. Makeba helped raise funds for various civil rights organisations. Following a concert and rally in Atlanta in support of Martin Luther King, Makeba and others were denied entrance to a restaurant as a result of Jim Crow laws, leading to a televised protest in front of the establishment. She did however, criticised King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference for its investment in South African companies, informing press that "Now my friend of long standing supports the country's persecution of my people and I must find a new idol". Her identity as an African woman in the civil rights movement helped create "an emerging liberal consensus" that extreme racial discrimination, whether domestically or internationally, was harmful. In 1964 she testified at the UN for a second time.

On 15 March 1966, Makeba and Belafonte received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording for An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba. The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid, including several songs critical of the South African government. It was widely popular and the concert sold out quickly. Makeba's use of Swahili, Xhosa, and Sotho led to her being seen as a representation of an "authentic" Africa by American audiences. In 1967, more than ten years after she first recorded the song, the single "Pata Pata" was released in the US on an album of the same title, and became a worldwide hit.

“Be careful, think about the effect of what you say. Your words should be constructive, bring people together, not pull them apart.”

 

However, following her marriage to Carmichael in March 1968, her popularity took a hit as fans became alienated by her “extremism”. Her performances were cancelled and her coverage in the press declined despite her protestations that her marriage was romantic and not apolitical. White American audiences withdrew their support , and the US government took an interest in her activities. The CIA and FBI began following and bugging her apartment (wtf). While she and her husband were travelling in the Bahamas, she was banned from returning to the US, and was refused a visa (again wtf). As a result, the couple moved to Guinea, where Carmichael changed his name to Kwame Touré. Makeba would not return to the US until 1987.

Guinea remained Makeba's home for the next 15 years, and she and her husband became close to President Ahmed Sékou Touré. Touré was a great patron of African music and offered all muscians a minimum age. As Makeba herself said: "I've never seen a country that did what Sékou Touré did for artists." While in Guinea, she began to write music more directly critical of the US government's racial policies.

"I have one thing in common with the emerging black nations of Africa: We both have voices, and we are discovering what we can do with them."

Makeba performed more frequently in African countries, and as countries became independent of European colonial powers, was invited to sing at independence ceremonies. She also became a diplomat for Ghana, and was appointed Guinea's official delegate to the UN in 1975. She continued to perform in Europe and Asia, as well as her African concerts, but not in the US, which she had vowed to boycott even had she been allowed to enetr. Her performances in Africa were immensely popular, despite remaining banned in South Africa. Makeba later stated that it was during this period that she accepted the label "Mama Africa".

In 1976, the South African government replaced English with Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in all schools, setting off the Soweto uprising. Between 15,000 and 20,000 students took part; caught unprepared, the police opened fire on the protesting children, killing hundreds and injuring more than a thousand. Hugh Masekela wrote "Soweto Blues" in response to the massacre, and the song was performed by Makeba, becoming a staple of her live performances for many years.

Her personal life however, had taken a more tragic turn. She had separated from Carmichael in 1973 and in 1981 she married her fifth husband Bageot Bah, an airline executive. In 1985, she lost her only daughter – who had also become a singer - when she died in childbirth, leaving Makeba caring for her two grandchildren. She decided to leave Guinea and settled in Brussels.

“In the mind, in the heart, I was always home. I always imagined, really, going back home.”

Her career continued to flourish however. Masekela introduced Makeba to Paul Simon, and a few months later she embarked on Simon's very successful Graceland Tour. The tour concluded with two concerts held in Zimbabwe. After touring the world with Simon, Warner Bros. Records signed Makeba and she released Sangoma ("Healer"), an album of healing chants named in honour of her sangoma mother. Her involvement with Simon caused controversy: Graceland had been recorded in South Africa, breaking the cultural boycott of the country, and thus Makeba's participation in the tour was regarded as contravening the boycott (which Makeba herself endorsed).This does seem slightly hypocritical and somewhat out of character. Especially considering that while preparing fo the tour, she wrote an autobiography, Makeba: My Story, describing her experiences of apartheid and the racism in the US.  The book was translated into five languages.

In 1988, she took part in the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute, at London's Wembley Stadium, which was broadcast to an audience of 600 million across 67 countries. Political aspects of the concert were heavily censored in the US by the Fox television network. The use of music to raise awareness of apartheid paid off: a survey after the concert found that among people aged between 16 and 24, three-quarters knew of Mandela, and supported his release from prison. I love this because it shows how powerful music really is – something which I think is still evident today (i.e. Hamilton, Stormzy etc).

Mandela was released from prison in February 1990 and persuaded Makeba to return to South Africa, which she did, using her French passport, on 10 June 1990.

Makeba, Gillespie, Simone, and Masekela recorded and released her studio album, Eyes on Tomorrow, in 1991. It combined jazz, R&B, pop, and traditional African music, and was a hit across Africa. Makeba and Gillespie then toured the world together to promote it. In 1992, she starred in the film Sarafina!, which centred on students involved in the 1976 Soweto uprising. Makeba portrayed the title character's mother, Angelina, a role which The New York Times described as having been performed with "immense dignity".

“Girls are the future mothers of our society, and it is important that we focus on their well-being.”

In October 1999, Makeba was named a Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. The following year, she was nominated for a Grammy. She worked closely with Graça Machel-Mandela, the South African first lady, advocating for children suffering from HIV/AIDS, child soldiers, and the physically disabled. She soon established the Makeba Centre for Girls, a home for orphans, described in an obituary as her most personal project. She also took part in the 2002 documentary Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony, which examined the struggles of black South Africans against apartheid through the music of the period. Makeba's second autobiography, Makeba: The Miriam Makeba Story, was published in 2004. In 2005 she announced that she would retire and began a farewell tour, but despite having osteoarthritis, continued to perform until her death. During this period, her grandchildren and great grand-child occasionally joined her performances.

On 9 November 2008, Makeba fell ill during a charity concert in Italy. She suffered a heart attack after singing her hit song "Pata Pata", and was taken to the Pineta Grande clinic, where doctors were unable to revive her. Music thus bookended her life, and brought meaning to every minute inbetween. She actually predicted her own death, saying: “I will probably die singing”. 

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.

Makeba released more than 30 albums during her career. The dominant styles of these shifted over time, moving from African jazz to music drawing from traditional South African musical forms. She has been associated with the genres of world music and Afropop. Historian Ruth Feldstein described her music as "[crossing] the borders between what many people associated with avant-garde and 'quality' culture and the commercial mainstream"; the latter aspect often drew criticism. She was able to appeal to audiences from many political, racial, and national backgrounds. This was all part of her success.

She was known for having a dynamic vocal range, but also lauded for her emotional awareness during her performances. She occasionally danced during her shows, and was described as having a sensuous presence on stage. She was able to vary her voice considerably: an obituary remarked that she "could soar like an opera singer, but she could also whisper, roar, hiss, growl and shout. She could sing while making the epiglottal clicks of the Xhosa language." She sang in English and several African languages, but never in Afrikaans, the language of the apartheid government in South Africa. She once stated "When Afrikaaners sing in my language, then I will sing theirs." English was seen as the language of political resistance by black South Africans due to the educational barriers they faced under apartheid; the Manhattan Brothers, with whom Makeba had sung in Sophiatown, had been prohibited from recording in English. Her songs in African languages have been described as reaffirming black pride.

“People say I sing politics, but what I sing is not politics, it is the truth.”

Makeba said that she did not perform political music, but music about her personal life in South Africa, which included describing the pain she felt living under apartheid. She originally avoided discussing politics out of fear for her family who remained behind in South Africa. Nonetheless, she became famous for using her platform to convey the political message of opposition to apartheid and civil rights. Even songs that did not carry an explicitly political message were seen as subversive, due to their being banned in South Africa. Makeba saw her music as a tool of activism: "In our struggle, songs are not simply entertainment for us. They are the way we communicate."

Makeba's use of the clicks common in languages such as Xhosa and Zulu was frequently commented on by Western audiences. It contributed to her popularity and her exotic image, which scholars have described as a kind of othering, exacerbated by the fact that Western audiences often could not understand her lyrics. Critics in the US described her as the "African tribeswoman" and as an "import from South Africa", often depicting her in condescending terms as a product of a more primitive society. Commentators also frequently described her in terms of the prominent men she was associated with, despite her own prominence. During her early career in South Africa she had been seen as a sex symbol, an image that received considerably less attention in the US. (Everything about this makes me sick with rage so lets move on).

In South Africa and beyond, Makeba was described as a style icon. She wore no makeup and refused to straighten her hair for shows, thus helping establish a style that came to be known internationally. According to music scholar Tanisha Ford, her hairstyle represented a "liberated African beauty aesthetic". She was an especial beauty icon by South African schoolgirls, who were forced by the government to shorten their hair. Makeba stuck to wearing African jewellery and refused to advertise skin-lighteners. This has been seen as a rejection of the predominantly white standards of beauty that women in the US were held to, which allowed Makeba to partially escape the sexualisation directed at women performers during this period. Nonetheless, the terms used to describe her in the US media have been identified by scholars as frequently used to "sexualize, infantalize, and animalize" people of African heritage.

Makeba was among the most visible Africans in the US and thus became emblematic of the continent of Africa for Americans. Her music earned her the moniker "Mama Africa", and she was variously described as the "Empress of African Song", the "Queen of South African music", and Africa's "first superstar". Music scholar J. U. Jacobs said that Makeba's music had "both been shaped by and given shape to black South African and American music". Makeba was credited with bringing African music to a Western audience, helping to popularise the genre of world music.

“The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us.”

 

Makeba was among the most visible people campaigning against the apartheid system in South Africa, and was responsible for popularising several anti-apartheid songs. Due to her high profile, she became a spokesperson of sorts for Africans living under oppressive governments, and in particular for black South Africans living under apartheid. She thus became a symbol of resistance to the white-minority government both within and outside South Africa.

Makeba has also been associated with the movement against colonialism, with the civil rights and black power movements in the US, and with the Pan-African movement. She called for unity between black people of African descent across the world: "Africans who live everywhere should fight everywhere. The struggle is no different in South Africa, the streets of Chicago, Trinidad or Canada. The Black people are the victims of capitalism, racism and oppression, period". After marrying Carmichael she often appeared with him during his speeches; Carmichael later described her presence at these events as an asset, emphasising his message that "black is beautiful". Their activism has been described as simultaneously calling attention to racial and gender disparities, and highlighting "that the liberation they desired could not separate race from sex". Makeba's critique of second-wave feminism as being the product of luxury led to observers being unwilling to call her a feminist. However, scholar Ruth Feldstein stated that Makeba and others influenced both black feminism and second-wave feminism through their advocacy, and the historian Jacqueline Castledine referred to her as one of the "most steadfast voices for social justice".

“Everybody now admits that apartheid was wrong, and all I did was tell the people who wanted to know where I come from how we lived in South Africa. I just told the world the truth. And if my truth then becomes political, I can't do anything about that”

Makeba's 1965 collaboration with Harry Belafonte won a Grammy Award, making her the first African recording artist to win this award. Makeba won the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize in 1986, and in 2001 was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold by the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin, "for outstanding services to peace and international understanding". She also received several honorary doctorates. In 2004, she was voted 38th in a poll ranking 100 Great South Africans. Mama Africa, a musical about Makeba, was produced in South Africa by Niyi Coker. Originally titled Zenzi!, the musical premiered to a sold-out crowd in Cape Town on 26 May 2016. It returned to South Africa in February 2017 for what would have been Makeba's 85th birthday.

I had shamefully never heard of Miriam Makeba until her name came up in a “100 greatest women” book I was gifted for my birthday. I listened to her music before properly reading up on her, and only grew more inspired by her after finding out the story behind it. Obviously, everyone has heard of Nelson (and Winnie) Mandela, Makeba is a quick-forgotten hero of the anti-apartheid movement. She highlighted the similarities in black plight across the globe, and symbolises the power of music and language to unite and ignite passion. I love that she was non-apologetic for her looks and rejected the sexist and whitewashed standards of beauty imposed on her. Her treatment by the various states and the media across the globe attest to the disgusting misogynistic, racist, and imperialist sentiments that women such as Makeba faced, and her charity worked focussed on the fact that black women often bear the brunt of war and oppression which is true across all times and contexts. I strongly urge you go and have a listen to her songs if you haven’t. Because I usually write about women from much longer ago, its rare for me to be able to hear the voice of the women I write about and I definitely felt inspired hearing the power, love,a nd determination in her song – despite the effortlessness and ease with which she sings.