miriam makeba | mama afrika

NOTES from the UNDERGROUND No.161 | November 10, 2008

MAMA AFRIKA

Miriam Makeba

1932-2008

“I have to go and say farewell to all the countries that I have been to, if I can. I’m 73 now, it is taxing on me.”

Her ‘activist’ mission was simple: to bring the world together with music. She died today in Italy still determined and engaged in trying to make the world sing. Norbert Blei

“You sing about those things that surround you,” she said. “Our surrounding has always been that of suffering from apartheid and the racism that exists in our country. So our music has to be affected by all that.”

“I believe I can sing anything”

1.Strophe:

Sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata pat Chor:„Pata Pata”)
Sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata pat …(Chor: Sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata pat…(Chor: „Pata
Sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata

1. Refrain

Hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata
Hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pa …(Chor: „Pata Pata”)
A-hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pata pat …(Chor:
A-hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pat …(Chor: „Pata

2. Strophe

Aya sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor:
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pat …(Chor: „Pata)
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata)
Bridge:
„Pata Pata” is the name of a dance … we do down Johannesburg way.
And everybody … starts to move … as soon as „Pata Pata” starts to play – hoo …

3. Strophe

Aya sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor:
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pat …(Chor: „Pata)
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata

2. Refrain

Hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata
Hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pat …(Chor: „Pata
A-hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pata pat …(Chor:
A-hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pat …(Chor: „Pata)

4. Strophe

Haji-a sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor:
A sat wuguga sat ju benga jo-ho …(Chor: „Pata Pata”)
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata pat …(Chor:
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si …(Chor: „Pata)
Bridge
Hoo, every Friday and Saturday night … it’s „Pata Pata”-time.
The dance keeps going all night long … till the morning sun begins to shine – hey!
Aya sat wuguga sat – wo-ho-o …(Chor: „Pata Pata”)

5. Strophe

Aya sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor:
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pat …(Chor: „Pata)
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata

3. Refrain

Hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata
Hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pat …(Chor: „Pata
A-hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pata pat …(Chor:
A-hihi ha mama, hi-a-ma sat si pat …(Chor: „Pata

6. Strophe

Huh- a sat wuguga sat – hit it! …(Chor: „Pata Pata”)
Aah- sat wuguga sat – aim not si – hit it! …(Chor: „
A sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata …(Chor: „Pata Pata

Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008 was a Grammy Award-winning South African singer, also known as Mama Afrika.

Miriam Zenzi Makeba was born in Johannesburg in 1932. Her mother was a Swazi sangoma and her father, who died when she was six, was a Xhosa. As a child, she sang at the Kilmerton Training Institute in Pretoria, which she attended for eight years.

Makeba first toured with an amateur group. Her professional career began in the 1950s with the Manhattan Brothers, before she formed her own group, The Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional melodies of South Africa.

In 1959, she performed in the musical King Kong alongside Hugh Masekela, her future husband. Though she was a successful recording artist, she was only receiving a few dollars for each recording session and no provisional royalties, and was keen to go to the US. Her break came when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa in 1959. She went to the premier of the film at the Venice Film Festival.

Makeba then travelled to London where she met Harry Belafonte, who assisted her in gaining entry to and fame in the United States. She released many of her most famous hits there including “Pata Pata”, “The Click Song” (“Qongqothwane” in Xhosa), and “Malaika”. In 1966, Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording together with Harry Belafonte for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba. The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid.

She discovered that her South African passport was revoked when she tried to return there in 1960 for her mother’s funeral. In 1963, after testifying against apartheid before the United Nations, her South African citizenship and her right to return to the country were revoked. She has had nine passports, and was granted honorary citizenship of ten countries.

Her marriage to Trinidadian civil rights activist and Black Panthers leader Stokely Carmichael in 1968 caused controversy in the United States, and her record deals and tours were cancelled. As a result of this, the couple moved to Guinea, where they became close with President Ahmed Sékou Touré and his wife. Makeba separated from Carmichael in 1973, and continued to perform primarily in Africa, South America and Europe. She was one of the African and Afro-American entertainers at the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman held in Zaïre. Makeba also served as a Guinean delegate to the United Nations, for which she won the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize in 1986.

After the death of her only daughter Bongi Makeba in 1985, she moved to Brussels. In 1987, she appeared in Paul Simon’s Graceland tour. Shortly thereafter she published her autobiography Makeba: My Story (ISBN 0-453-00561-6).

Nelson Mandela persuaded her to return to South Africa in 1990. In the fall of 1991, she made a guest appearance in an episode of The Cosby Show, entitled “Olivia Comes Out Of The Closet”. In 1992 she starred in the film Sarafina!, about the 1976 Soweto youth uprisings, as the title character’s mother, “Angelina.” She also took part in the 2002 documentary Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony where she and others recalled the days of apartheid.

In January 2000, her album, Homeland, produced by Cedric Samson and Michael Levinsohn was nominated for a Grammy Award in the “Best World Music” category. In 2001 she was awarded the Gold Otto Hahn Peace Medal by the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin, “for outstanding services to peace and international understanding”. In 2002, she shared the Polar Music Prize with Sofia Gubaidulina. In 2004, Makeba was voted 38th in the Top 100 Great South Africans. Makeba started a worldwide farewell tour in 2005, holding concerts in all of those countries that she had visited during her working life. Her publicist notes that Makeba had suffered “severe arthritis” for some time.

She died in Castel Volturno, near Caserta, Italy, in the evening of 9 November 2008, of a heart attack, shortly after taking part in a concert organized to support writer Roberto Saviano in his stand against the Camorra, a mafia-like organisation. In his condolence message, former South African president Nelson Mandela said it was “fitting that Makeba died doing what she did best – singing.”

Discography

• Miriam Makeba and Dizzy Gillespie in concert (1991).
• * Miriam Makeba: 1960
• * The Many Voices Of Miriam Makeba: 1960
• * The World Of Miriam Makeba: 1962
• * Makeba: 1963
• * Makeba Sings: 1965
• * An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba (with Harry Belafonte): 1965
• * The Click Song: 1965
• * All About Makeba: 1966
• * Malaisha: 1966
• * Miriam Makeba In Concert!: 1967
• * Pata Pata: 1967
• * Makeba!: 1968
• * The Promise: 1974
• * Country Girl: 1975
• * Pata Pata: 1977
• * Sangoma: 1988
• * Welela: 1989
• * Eyes On Tomorrow: 1991
• * Sing Me A Song: 1993
• * A Promise: 1994
• * Live From Paris & Conakry: 1998
• * Homeland, 2000
• * Keep Me In Mind, 2002
• * Live at Berns Salonger, Stockholm, Sweden, 1966: 2003
• * Reflections, 2004
• * Makeba Forever, 2006 (last recording)

Compilations

• * The Queen Of African Music – 17 Great Songs, 1987
• * Africa 1960-65 recordings, 1991
• * Eyes On Tomorrow, 1991
• * The Best Of Miriam Makeba & The Skylarks: 1956 – 1959 recordings, 1998
• * Mama Africa: The Very Best Of Miriam Makeba, 2000
• * The Guinea Years, 2001
• * The Definitive Collection, 2002
• * The Best Of The Early Years, 2003

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