Internationally known South African singer, Miriam Makeba (1932 – 2008), nicknamed “Mama Africa” is also an equality activist and a powerful voice against apartheid. She is committed all her life against racism and injustice.
“You can only blame yourself”
Daughter of Christina Makeba, a Swazi sangoma – traditional caregiver – and Caswell Makeba, a Xhosa teacher, Zenzile Makeba Qgwashu Nguvama was born on March 4, 1932, in the township of Prospect near Johannesburg. His name is a diminutive of Uzenzile , meaning "You can only blame yourself". Before Zenzile was born, Christina was reportedly warned that giving birth could be fatal to her. During the delivery, which was particularly difficult and risky, Christina's mother repeatedly told her uzenzile , “You can only blame yourself”. It is from this episode that the child takes his first name.
Zenzile was born in what was then the Union of South Africa, founded in 1910 as a dominion of the British Crown. The state is experiencing a rise in Afrikaner nationalism, an ideology born among these non-English-speaking white South Africans of Dutch, French, German or Scandinavian origin, and which promotes racial segregation in particular. The seeds of apartheid, aimed at geographically and politically separating blacks and whites in South Africa, had already been sown, and racial segregation was a reality.
A childhood in music
When Zenzile was only 18 days old, her mother was sentenced to six months in prison for making and selling umqombothi, a beer made from corn and malt; this is where the newborn spends its first months of life. She was only six when her father died.
Zenzile grew up in a family that loves and practices music. His mother plays several traditional instruments, his father plays the piano, his brother collects records, including Ella Fitzgerald, and communicates his musical tastes to him. She sings her first notes when she was only a little girl, at her school in Pretoria. His obvious talent is already earning him praise. Protestant, she sings in church choirs, in English - without yet speaking the language -, in Xhosa, in Sotho, in Zulu.
After her father's death, Zenzile lived for a time with her grandmother and a few cousins in Pretoria, while her mother worked for white families in Johannesburg. Also put to work, the little girl works as a servant and as a nanny.
A brief marriage
In 1948, the Reunified National Party and the Afrikaner Party - the Afrikaner nationalists - won the general elections and established apartheid, separating the populations on racial criteria. The new government is made up exclusively of Afrikaners. In June, Prime Minister D.F. Malan rejoiced:"Today South Africa belongs to us once again... May God grant that it is always ours." »
In 1949, Zenzine, who was only seventeen, married James Kubay, a police officer in training, with whom she had a daughter, Bongi Makeba. Shortly after, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and her husband, who had been violent with her, left her after two years of marriage. Zenzine is recovering and, installed with her mother and daughter, lives from various jobs such as babysitting and washing taxis. Ten years later, she will also survive cervical cancer.
Musician debut
Passionate about music and singing, Zenzine began her career with the Cuban Brothers , an all-male group with which she sings covers of popular American songs. She stayed with them for a short time and ended up joining a jazz group, Manhattan Brothers, in 1952. , which crosses South African and African-American songs. It was within groups that were also male that she earned her stage name, Miriam Makeba.
In 1956, Miriam this time joined a female group, the Skylarks , whose music combines traditional South African songs and jazz. The same year, she recorded in Xhosa and English her first solo success, "Lakutshn, Ilanga", "Lovely lies" in English. The title crosses borders and earns him international notoriety, especially in the United States. The same year, she also wrote what is still considered her greatest success, the title Pata Pata – a song that she herself considers "one of her most insignificant" .
Now recognized in her art, Miriam uses her notoriety and the audience it gives her to oppose apartheid. In 1959, she appeared briefly in the anti-apartheid film Come Back, Africa by Lionel Rogosin. The film, made in secret, mixes fiction and documentary, and Miriam appears in it for a few minutes, singing two songs. Her role earned her invitations around the world, to Venice for the film premiere, to London and New York to perform. She met many artists there including Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Lauren Bacall, Nina Simone, Maya Angelou, Marlon Brando, Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles… She participated in TV shows, sang in jazz clubs in which she made a strong impression. . She then decides to settle in New York and, despite her success, experiences a period of financial insecurity that forces her to work as a babysitter.
A long exile
Shortly after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, during which 69 black demonstrators died under police repression, Miriam Makeba learned of the death of her mother. Two members of his family died in the massacre. When she seeks to return to South Africa for the funeral, she discovers that her South African passport has been cancelled. His exile will last 31 years.“I had always wanted to leave , she will say. I never thought they would stop me from coming back. Maybe if I had known, I wouldn't have left. It's painful to be far from what you've always known. We do not know the pain of exile until we are in exile » .
Worried about the members of her family who remained in South Africa, Miriam brings her nine-year-old daughter to New York. Now, more than a political conviction, she feels a responsibility to help those who stayed behind, and since her American exile has become a powerful voice against apartheid. While pursuing a flourishing career in the United States, she no longer hesitates to openly and virulently criticize the white government of South Africa and racial segregation.
A political artist
In the United States, Miriam Makeba records new albums which have uneven success; Time magazine calls her "the most exciting new singing talent to emerge in many years" . She appeals to white audiences for her South African origins and her songs in Xhosa, Sotho, Zulu, considered "exotic"; and it appeals to the black public who, in the midst of racial segregation, recognizes itself in its commitment against apartheid. Of the situation in the United States, she would later say:“There was not much difference in the United States; it is a country which had abolished slavery, but which in its own way knew an apartheid” .
In 1962, Miriam sang at President John F. Kennedy's birthday party at Madison Square Garden. The following year, she married Hugh Masekela, a South African musician in exile like her, with whom she was married until 1968. Known beyond South Africa, Miriam travels around the world and adds songs from Africa, Europe, Latin America to his repertoire. In 1962, she went to Kenya and raised funds for the country's independence. The same year, she testified on apartheid at the United Nations, demanding economic sanctions and an embargo against South Africa. In retaliation, his music was banned from the country and his citizenship revoked. Briefly stateless, she quickly received Algerian, Guinean, Belgian and Ghanaian passports.
The commitments for which Miriam is hated by the government of her country attract tribute to her elsewhere. Shortly after her testimony, she was the only artist invited – by the Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie – to perform at the inauguration of the Organization of African Unity.
The civil rights movement in the United States
Gradually, Miriam Makeba's commitment to civil rights, against racial segregation and against apartheid, strengthened. In the United States, she joined civil rights movements, dated a leader of the Black Panther Party, gave a benefit concert for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) of Martin Luther King Jr., without forgetting her country of origin:she will thus be very critical of SCLC's investments in South African companies, saying:"Now, my long-time friend supports the persecution of my people by his country, and I have to find a new idol. »
In March 1966, Miriam received a Grammy Award for her record “An evening with Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba “. Very political, the album focuses on denouncing the situation of black South Africans under apartheid and criticizing the government, with sometimes direct references to apartheid officials. The album, composed in Swahili, Xhosa and Sotho, was a great success, as was the tour that followed.
In 1969, Miriam married civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael, former leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and leader of the Black Panthers, who later took the name Kwame Ture. The union considerably degrades her popularity in the United States:Miriam is seen as an extremist, the white public disowns her, some of her performances are canceled and the government places her under close surveillance. After a trip to the Bahamas, Miriam was banned from entering the United States and moved to Guinea with her husband.
Life in exile
From Guinea where she remained for fifteen years, close to President Ahmed Sékou Touré and his wife Andrée, Miriam Makeba continues to compose committed music, directly criticizing the policy of the United States government, evoking Malcolm X or the hero of the independence of the Belgian Congo Patrice Lumumba.
During this period of decolonization of Africa, Miriam was frequently invited to perform at independence ceremonies, notably in Kenya, Angola, Zambia, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), and Mozambique. She also travels to Europe and Asia, but more to the United States, and her tours remain very popular. In Liberia, she cannot complete her performance of “Pata Pata” the stadium is so noisy. It was at this time that she earned the nickname "Mama Africa".
In 1976, in the township of Soweto south-west of Johannesburg, the police brutally suppressed demonstrations by pupils and students, killing between 176 and 700 people. In response, Hugh Masekela wrote the song "Soweto Blues", which Miriam performed.
“Children were flying bullets dying
The mothers screaming and crying
The fathers were working in the cities
The evening news brought out all the publicity »
Soweto Blues
In 1985, Miriam's daughter, Bongi, a singer like her mother, died in childbirth. In charge of her two grandchildren, Miriam decided to leave Guinea and moved to Belgium, where in 1981 she married Bageot Bah, who worked for an airline. While pursuing his musical career, notably with the album Sangoma in tribute to her mother, she is working on her autobiography "Makeba:My Story with journalist James Hall; she notably criticizes apartheid and the United States. In 1985, Miriam received the title of Commander of Arts and Letters from France, then Honorary Citizen in 1990 .
Back in South Africa
In 1990, Nelson Mandela, a major figure in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, was released after twenty-seven in prison. He convinces Miriam Makeba to return to South Africa, which she does using her French passport. In June 1990, the singer returned to her country after 31 years of exile.
In 1992, Miriam starred in Darrell Roodt's Franco-British-American-South African film Sarafina! on the Soweto riots of 1976. She plays the role of Angelina, mother of the main character.
After Nelson Mandela came to power in 1994, Miriam did not stop getting involved. Together with the president's wife, Graça Machel-Mandela, she defends the cause of children with HIV, child soldiers and children with disabilities. She creates the Makeba Center for Girls for orphans, a project that is particularly close to her heart.
In 2005, Miriam started a farewell tour, but still continued to perform on stage until her death. In November 2008, she had a heart attack on stage in Italy, after performing the song “Pata Pata” during a concert in support of the writer Roberto Saviano, threatened by the mafia. Miriam Makeva "Mama Africa" dies in hospital at the age of 76.
“I look at an ant and I see myself:a South African, endowed by nature with a strength far beyond my size to be able to face the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit. I look at a bird and I see myself:a South African, flying over the injustices of apartheid on wings of pride, the pride of a beautiful people. »
Miriam Makeba