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Miriam Makeba - Mama Africa

Miriam Makeba, the South African singer who became a world famous symbol of the anti-apartheid movement, died this morning, apparently of a heart attack after performing at an anti Mafia concert in southern Italy.

Born in Johannesburg in 1932 to a Xhosa father and Swazi mother, Makeba – often called ‘Mama Africa’ and ‘the Empress of African Song’ – left South Africa in 1959. When she tried to return for the funeral of her mother the following year, her passport was taken away and she was banned from the country. She addressed the UN in 1976 to denounce apartheid, after which her songs were banned in South Africa.

The singer lived in exile for over thirty years in the United States, France, West Africa and Belgium. She went back to South Africa in 1990, when the then President, F.W. de Klerk, began to introduce reforms which eventually ended in the dismantling of apartheid and the release from prison and subsequent election as President of Nelson Mandela.

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Africa, anti-apartheid, Miriam Makeba