The South African singer, author of global success “Pata Pata” and figure of the struggle against apartheid, died of a heart attack . Nicknamed “Mama Africa” Miriam Makeba died in the night from Sunday to Monday after a concert in Italy.

At age 76, she came to sing for a half hour at a concert in support of Roberto Saviano, the author of the film Gomorra, threatened with death by the Mafia in Naples.

 The singer was up on stage last and waiting for the calling of the public, when she was discovered lying on the ground, fainted. Transported to the hospital, she died at the clinic Pineta Grande de Castel Volturno, after a heart attack.

Her real first name “Zenza” (short for Uzenzile), Miriam Makeba, known worldwide for her hit “Pata Pata” was a figure of the anti-apartheid struggle. Born in Johannesburg on 4 March 1932 from a Swazi mother and a Xhosa father, she was the voice of the first group the Manhattan Brothers, she accompanied on tour in the USA in 1959.

The success came in with Miriam Makeba “Pata Pata,” a song written in 1956 and registered in 1962, endorsed notably by Sylvie Vartan under “Tape Tape. In 1965, she was the first black woman to receive a Grammy Award, shared with the singer Harry Belafonte for their disc in common, “An Evening With Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba.”

31 years in exile

After a series of concerts around the world, the South African state had deprived her of her nationality for the participation in an anti-apartheid film, “Come back to Africa”, preventing her from returning to attend the funeral of her mother and even prohibited her music. During 31 years, she will live away from her country. She will get an honorary citizenship in ten countries, including France.

In 1969, Miriam Makeba married Stokely Carmichael, one of the heads of American Black Panters, a well know face in the civil rights struggle, which brought him many problems with the American justice and forced him to go into exile in Guinea . She divorced four years later.

In 1985 she was made Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the French. But the death of her only daughter, Bongi, at the aged 36, and financial issues , plunged the singer into depression. In 1987, while living in Belgium, she had a new global success by participating in the album Paul Simon’s Graceland.

In 1990, when it has obtained French nationality, Nelson Mandela finally persuade her to return to South Africa. In 1992, she made an appearance in the film Sarafina!, Which tells the Soweto riots in 1976.

It was not until 2000 that Miriam Makeba released a new album. The Homeland is, a disc carring her joy of being back to her country. “I kept my culture, I kept the music of my roots. Through her, I became this voice and this image of Africa and its people without even being aware, “Miriam Makeba wrote in her autobiography.

Afriquechos.ch