In the African Diaspora: Zenzile Miriam Makeba, aka "Mama Africa"
Miriam Makeba, South African singer, song writer, and actor, never viewed herself as an activist. Nonetheless, her music exposed the brutal realities—ramshackle housing, no water or electricity, police crackdowns, and no work—in impoverished and overcrowded Black townships, under the apartheid rule of an all-white Afrikaner minority.
“Now this land is so rich, and it seems strange to me
That the black man whose labor has helped it to be
Cannot enjoy the fruits that abound
Is uprooted and kicked from his own piece of ground.”
Zenzile Makeba Ogwashu Nguvama was born March 4, 1932, in the Prospect township, during a period of economic depression in her country. Her mother, Christina, a domestic worker, illegally brewed beer to feed her five children. Consequently, she was arrested and sent to prison for six months along with her newborn daughter, Makeba.
Christina was a Swazi sangoma (traditional healer), who sang and played the traditional African drums; Makeba’s father, Caswell, a Xhosa teacher, preferred Western classical music. He died when Makeba was five years; at age 16, she began to work with her mother as a house cleaner.
At 17, she married her childhood sweetheart, Paul Kubay, a young South African police trainee, and had her only child, Sibongile “Bongi” Makeba in 1950. (At 35-years-old, Bongi died giving birth to her third child. Makeba often regretted her decision to relocate Bongi to the U.S. “I feel guilty … I wonder how many of Bongi’s problems were my fault.”)
After her breast cancer diagnosis, Makeba abandoned their two-year marriage to escape Kubay’s alleged domestic abuse and infidelity. According to FemBio.org, “White doctors suggested a mastectomy to treat an abscess in Zenzi’s breast, but she refused, turning instead to her mother for traditional healing.”
A Budding Career
In 1959, Makeba was cast as a shebeen singer in the feature-length film, Come Back Africa, about Zachariah, a Black South African who leaves his home to find work in Johannesburg; the movie shone a harsh light on the South African government’s policies. While attending the Venice Film Festival (VFF) to accept an award for the film, her passport was revoked.
After the VFF, Makeba moved to London, where she met Harry Belafonte, a popular singer, actor, and civil rights activist who would help her immigrate to the U.S., where she would join with prominent civil rights figures, Black nationalists, and celebrities who opposed racial discrimination and segregation.
By her twenties, Makeba had moved to Sophiatown, a place where the races could mix and enjoy popular music genres, including kwela music, marabi, African jazz, and big band music. She sang with the Cuban Brothers, her cousin’s band; in 1954, she joined the Manhattan Brothers and toured throughout the Belgian Congo, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Later, she joined the all-female Skylark singers, whose repertoire combined jazz and traditional African music. In 1959, she was the female lead in the jazz opera King Kong opposite her future husband, Hugh Masekela, a composer, musician, and singer.
In November 1959, Makeba arrived in New York, resigned to the fact of her exile. When she tried to return to South Africa for her mother’s funeral, she learned that her passport would not be renewed. In 1960, after testifying about apartheid at the United Nations, the south African government revoked her passport and took away her citizenship.
Coming to America
Although Makeba’s music was banned in South Africa, her career took off in the U.S.; she performed for President John F. Kennedy at the Madison Square Garden; she won a Grammy for “An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba” in 1965; she recorded four albums as well as the famous “click song, “Qogothwane.”
Makeba had fans among American celebrities, including singer-songwriter Nina Simone and Miles Davis, jazz trumpeter and bandleader.
In 1968, Makeba married Stokely Carmichael, who had garnered unwanted attention from the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) for his activism with the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Black Panther Party. Eventually, the couple re-located to Guinea but separated in 1978.
Throughout the 70s and 80s, Makeba toured Europe, South America, and Africa. She performed before heads of state and even at the Vatican. Despite her massive success, Makeba battled alcoholism and a bout with cervical cancer.
Home Again
After Nelson Mandela’s release from prison after 27 years, he invited Makeba to come home. In 1997, she embarked on her Farewell Tour. In 1998, she had sold-out tours in Africa, the USA and Europe. In 2002, she starred in Amandla, a four-part documentary about music’s part in the struggle against apartheid. Her biographical film, Mama Africa, Miriam Makeba, debuted in 2011.
Makeba received honorary doctorates from many academic institutions. In 1999, Mandela (South Africa’s first Black president) presented her with the Presidential Award. In 2005, she announced her retirement from the mainstream music industry but continued to do smaller venues.
Throughout her career, Makeba insisted that her music was not consciously political: "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."
On November 9, 2008, Mama Africa died shortly after performing her international hit, Pata Pata, at a fundraiser in support of Roberto Saviano, a writer and journalist, under threat from the Camorra, an Italian crime organization.
"Pumzika kwa amani”
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