Edition 45: Winter 2008/9

In November, African music fans mourned the loss of Miriam Makeba – easily the most influential female singer Africa has ever produced.

Makeba, who started out as a township jazz singer in the mid-50s, was exiled from her native South Africa in 1960. She became a prominent voice of the anti-apartheid movement, a lifelong campaigner for social and political justice, and a musical legend in Europe, North America and all over Africa.

The veteran performer, who once promised herself “I will sing until the last day of my life,” collapsed on stage at the end of a benefit concert in Italy. She was 76 years old. Her loss was met with particular sadness in her home country, where Nelson Mandela led the tributes with the words: “She was a mother to our struggle.”

Album choice
Makeba’s legacy of recorded music does scant justice to her on-stage presence, but you can’t go wrong with the following classics.
• An evening with Belafonte / Makeba (1965; re-released by DRG, 2008)
• Pata Pata (1972; re-released by Warner, 2002)
• Welela (1989; re-released by Gallo, 2006)