On March 4th, 1932--- Mirriam Makeba was born (375 hits)
March 4 She was a South African singer, entertainer, and activist. From Prospect, South Africa, throughout her life and singing career, Miriam Zenzi Makeba has used her voice to draw the attention of the world to the music of South Africa and to its oppressive system of racial separation, apartheid. For eight years she attended the Kilmerton Training School in Pretoria, where she sang in the school choir. During her teenage years, Makeba helped her mother with the domestic work she did for white families.
She also pursued singing and, in 1950, joined an amateur Johannesburg group called the Cuban Brothers. In 1954, a successful professional South African group, the Black Manhattan Brothers, noticed her. Eventually she left with the group in 1957 to become a member of a touring revue show, African Jazz and Variety. With her appearance in the semi-documentary antiapartheid film Come Back, Africa 1959, Makeba drew the attention of international audiences. That same year, Makeba traveled to London where she met African-American performer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who had requested a private screening of the film.
Belafonte became her sponsor and promoter in the United States. Through him, she appeared on the Steve Allen Show, which led to nightclubs around New York City and recordings of South Africa music. Some songs became hits in the United States, including Patha Patha, Malaika, and The Click Song. Her music also contained a political component, the denunciation of apartheid, which earned Makeba the hostility of the South African government, who revoked her passport when she attempted to return for her mother’s funeral in 1960. Makeba pressed on and, in 1963, she addressed a United Nations special committee on apartheid, characterizing South Africa as "a nightmare of police brutality and government terrorism...
In 1991, she released Eyes on Tomorrow and, that same year, Makeba gave her first live performance in South Africa since her departure more than 30 years earlier. She has continued to record and tour. In November, 2008, South Africa’s top female singer Mirriam Makeba died after being taken ill near the Southern Italian town of Caserta following a concert.
