Miriam Makeba
A singer, actress and civil rights campaigner, Miriam Makeba was one of South
Africa's most legendary performers, popularising her native music all over the
world and so revered she became known as Mama Africa. Born in Johannesburg, her
mother was a "Swazi sangoma" (herbal healer) whose imprisonment for selling
home-made beer meant that Miriam spent the first six months of her life in jail.
Her music career began in the early 1950s when she joined the jazz group
Manhattan Brothers, leaving them for an all-female group The Skylarks mixing
jazz with traditional South African songs....
