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Makeba, Miriam Zenzi
2 articles on Makeba, Miriam Zenzi
Makeba, Miriam Zenzi
Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 1040 Includes: Bibliography1932–
South African singer and political activist who helped introduce South African music to the world. Throughout her life and singing career, Miriam Zenzi Makeba has used her voice, which journalist Michael A. Hiltzik described as having “the clarity of a Joan Baez with the timing and throaty authority of a Sarah Vaughan,” to draw the attention of the world to the music of South Africa and to its oppressive system of racial separation, Apartheid. Born in Prospect Township, Makeba became an indirect victim of South African policies at the age of eighteen days when she began serving a six-month prison term with her mother for illegally selling traditional Swazi homemade beer as a result of economic necessity. For eight years Makeba attended the Kilmerton Training School in Pretoria, whereShe ...
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Source: Grove Music Online
Word Count: 561 Includes: Bibliography(b. Prospect, nr Johannesburg, 4 March 1932). South African folk and popular singer. As a child she learned traditional African tribal music and jazz-influenced popular music. She spent several years as a band singer and actress and first attracted attention when she sang the leading role in the African opera King Kongin London in 1959. She then went to the USA, where she achieved a national reputation performing in New York night clubs and on television, introducing contemporary African music to enthusiastic American audiences. Her concerts and albums demonstrated an eclectic taste, including West Indian and Israeli folk music as well as Broadway show tunes. She became best known, however, for her interpretations of such traditional and modern songs of the Xhosa and Zulu peoples as the robust ...
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