Miriam Makeba

Abstract

An iconic singer and an anti-apartheid activist, Miriam Makeba (b. 1932–d. 2008) was one of the most influential figures in the history of African popular music. Well before the advent of World Music as a marketing category, Makeba became a household name and mediated African music to diverse publics worldwide. Born in Johannesburg in 1932, Makeba absorbed the different musical genres of her surroundings, including African American jazz, gospel music, and the musical traditions of her Xhosa and Swazi family. She started singing professionally with the Cuban Brothers and later joined the Manhattan Brothers and the all-female group The Skylarks. Makeba participated in the musical King Kong, before making her major break outside of South Africa through her cameo appearance in the film Come Back, Africa, which documented the life of black people under the apartheid regime. Leaving South Africa to participate in screenings of the film, Makeba arrived in New York and began a prolific career, which resulted in several albums, television appearances, and a Grammy award for her album with her manager and mentor at that time, Harry Belafonte. Her position against the apartheid regime was manifested in her protest songs, supplemented by her political commentary, as well as in her public appearances, most notably in front of the UN Special Committee on Apartheid. Her marriage to civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael led to a decline in her career and the couple moved to Guinea, where Makeba became involved in the local music scene and in cultural production that is more attuned to the continent. Later in her life, Makeba regained her popularity in the United States by participating in the tour that followed Paul Simon’s Graceland album. After the collapse of the apartheid regime, Makeba returned to South Africa after thirty-two years in exile. During her lifetime, she paved the way for African musicians to succeed on global stages, and her legacy continues inspiring younger generations of African artists. Throughout the 20th century, Makeba was not the subject of much academic research. In recent years, however, scholars from diverse fields have begun to recognize the significance of her career and its intersection with key global processes in the 20th century, such as pan-Africanism, the Cold War, the struggle against apartheid, and African decolonization. To date, no general overviews have been written on Makeba’s work and, therefore, different sources must be consulted to obtain a full picture of her career.