A Music Warrior Gone Home!

[Ronn Nichols]

The Click Song
Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 - 10 November 2008) was a South African singer and civil rights activist. The Grammy Award winning afrobeat artist is often referred to as Mama Afrika.

Zenzile Miriam Makeba was born in Johannesburg in 1932. Her mother was a Swazi sangoma and her father, who died when she was six, was a Xhosa. As a child, she sang at the Kilmerton Training Institute in Pretoria, which she attended for eight years.
Makeba first toured with an amateur group. Her professional career began in the 1950s with the Manhattan Brothers, before she formed her own group, The Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional melodies of South Africa.

Makeba then travelled to London where she met Harry Belafonte, who assisted her in gaining entry to and fame in the United States. She released many of her most famous hits there including "Pata Pata", "The Click Song" ("Qongqothwane" in Xhosa), and "Malaika". In 1966, Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording together with Harry Belafonte for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba. The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid.
She discovered that her South African passport was revoked when she tried to return there in 1960 for her mother's funeral. In 1963, after testifying against apartheid before the United Nations, her South African citizenship and her right to return to the country were revoked. She has had nine passports, [3] and was granted honorary citizenship of ten countries.

Her marriage to Trinidadian civil rights activist and Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee leader Stokely Carmichael in 1968 caused controversy in the United States, and her record deals and tours were cancelled. As a result of this, the couple moved to Guinea, where they became close with President Ahmed Sékou Touré and his wife. Makeba separated from Carmichael in 1973, and continued to perform primarily in Africa, South America and Europe. She was one of the African and Afro-American entertainers at the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman held in Zaïre. Makeba also served as a Guinean delegate to the United Nations, for which she won the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize in 1986.

After the death of her only daughter Bongi Makeba in 1985, she moved to Brussels. In 1987, she appeared in Paul Simon's Graceland tour. Shortly thereafter she published her autobiography Makeba: My Story (ISBN 0-453-00561-6).
Pata Pata Wanna See the Dance? In Her Own words Marriage , Her Native Language Fighting Apartheid in Her Home South Africa Ask The Rising Sun Chove Chuva Apomonda Oxgam Kilimanjaro Miriam Makeba and Paul Simon A few Thoughts? Miriam Makeba - Warrior Goddess

Paul Simon joureyed to South Africa some years ago....In His WordsTO SING WITH............MIRIAM MAKEBAFind Out Why.....on the Blog Below!

[Ronn Nichols]

By Celean Jacobson The Associated Press
She died just how she wanted to - singing on stage for a good cause. And her songs wafted out of taxis and radios, as fellow Africans struggled with their grief at her passing.
Miriam Makeba, the "Mama Africa" whose sultry voice gave South Africans hope when the country was gripped by apartheid, died early Monday of a heart attack after collapsing on stage in Italy. She was 76.
In her dazzling career, Makeba performed with musical legends from around the world - jazz maestros Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie, Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon - and sang for world leaders such as John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela.
Her distinctive style, which combined jazz, folk and

[Ronn Nichols]

This pic was taken less than 1 hour before she died ONSTAGE while performing!