Miriam Makeba
Zenzile Miriam Makeba is well known throughout the world as ‘Mama Africa’ and the ‘Empress of African Song’. She was a popular South-African singer who introduced Xhosa and Zulu songs to Western audiences. She was the first vocalist to put African music onto the international map in the 1960s. Makeba was born in South Africa in 1932, during a time of economic depression. Her mother, a domestic worker, was imprisoned for six months for illegally brewing beer to help make ends meet, and Miriam went to prison with her as she was just 18 days old.
Her singing appearance in the documentary film Come Back, Africa (1959) attracted the interest of Harry Belafonte and with his help, Makeba settled in the United States, where she embarked on a successful singing and recording career. In 1965, she and Belafonte won a Grammy Award for best folk recording. She received renewed attention in the mid-1980s, after she met Paul Simon and joined Simon’s history-making Graceland tour. Makeba is best known for the songs “Pata Pata,” “The Click Song” and “Malaika.”She was also the first black woman to have a Top-Ten worldwide hit with Pata Pata in 1967. Mama Africa had entered the top flight of international performers and was able to sell out prestigious concert halls with a repertoire that changed little over three decades of musical evolution.
In 1960, when she tried to return to South Africa for her mother’s funeral, she discovered that her passport had been revoked. In 1963, she testified about apartheid at the United Nations and her South African citizenship was taken away from her. She lived in the US thereafter and her records were banned in South Africa.
Makeba has received honorary doctorates from both local and international academic institutions. The city of Berkeley proclaimed the 16 June to be Miriam Makeba Day and she has received the highest decoration from Tunisia. In 1999, Nelson Mandela presented her with the Presidential Award. Throughout her career Makeba insisted that her music was not consciously political.
In 2005, Makeba announced her retirement for the mainstream music industry but she continued making music and working as a civil rights activist until her death in 2008 at the age 76, after having a of a heart attack after a 30 minute performance at a concert for Roberto Saviano near the southern Italian town of Caserta.
Zahara
Bulelwa Mkutukana also known as Zahara is a South African Afro soul singer-songwriter. Her debut album ‘Loliwe’ released in 2011 proved to be a big success as she sold its first issue within 72 hours and 19 days later, the album reached double platinum status in South Africa by surpassing the 100,000 sales mark release. This made her the second musician after Brenda Fassie who was also a Xhosa native, to reach this figure in such record time. The music video for her debut single, “Loliwe”, has eclipsed the 1.3 million views mark on YouTube. She has since sold more than 800,000 copies of the album to date.
Zahara started singing in her school’s choir when she was six years old, and at the age of nine she was told to join the senior choir because of her strong voice. As a six-year-old member of the Lumanyano Primary School choir in rural East London, she dreamt that someday people would be moved by her singing. She first came to wider attention when she was appointed the lead singer of a local Sunday school choir in Phumlani. Her stage name means “blooming flower”; as a child she was known by the nickname “Spinach”.
As a little girl, she taught herself to play the guitar and this eventually led her out of a life of poverty. Now she donates guitars to young girls living in Africa as a way of giving them hope, and plans to offer them free online lessons. Zahara is often hailed as South Africa’s next Miriam Makeba, and she thinks that’s amazing. “I have performed for Nelson Mandela and at Wembley Stadium, which were two of my ‘must perform’ wishes, and now my biggest wish is to perform at Castel Volturno in Caserta, Italy, where Mama Miriam Makeba passed away, as she is one of the musical icons I look up to and she also, ironically, passed away on my birthday.”
