'Mama Africa' Miriam Makeba's 81st birthday Became Google Doodle

Google Doodle For Miriam Makeba

#The Google Doodle for this Monday remembered South African singer and civil rights activist Miriam Makeba on her 81st birthday.

#The Grammy-award winning singer, also known as Mama Africa, actively campaigned against South Africa's racist apartheid government. #Born in Johannesburg on March 4, 1932, Makeba gained initial fame in 1959 during a tour of the United States with South African group the Manhattan Brothers. #Zenzile Miriam Makeba's mother was a Swazi sangoma (traditional healer-herbalist). Her father died when she was six years old. #Miriam spent the first six months of her life in jail after her mother was sent to prison for selling illegal beer when she was just eighteen days old. #As a child, she sang in the choir of the Kilmerton Training Institute in Pretoria, a primary school that she attended for eight years. #In the 1950s, Makeba's professional career began and she was featured in the South African jazz group the Manhattan Brothers. She left the Manhattan Brothers to record with her all-woman group, The Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional melodies of South Africa. #She was the first artist from Africa to popularize African music in the US and around the world in the 1960s. Mama Africa is best known for the song "Pata Pata", first recorded in 1957 and released in the US in 1967.

#She along with popular artists including Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, and her former husband Hugh Masekela recorded and toured in several parts of the world. #In 1963, she testified against apartheid in South Africa before the United Nations. Her country responded by revoking her South African citizenship and right to return to the country.

#Guinea, Belgium and Ghana came to her support issued her international passports, and she became, in effect, a citizen of the world. In her life, she held nine passports, and was granted honorary citizenship in ten countries. #In 1966, Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording together with Harry Belafonte for An Evening with Belafonte/ Makeba.

#She moved to Guinea in 1968 after her marriage to Stokely Carmichael caused controversy in the US. She lived there for the next 15 years. #Miriam Makeba was amongst the several popular artists that took part in the Nelson Mandela 70th birthday tribute festival on 11 June 1988. Mandela was eventually released in February 1990 and that paved way for Makeba's return to her country in June 1990. #Since she actively campaigned against the racial seggregation and South African system of apartheid,  the South African government revoked her citizenship and right of return. #She returned home when apartheid cease to exist in her native country. She died on November 9, 2008 after performing in a concert in Italy. #A tribute show to Makeba entitled "Hommage à Miriam Makeba" and curated by Grammy Award-winning Beninoise singer-songwriter and activist Angélique Kidjo for the Festival d'Ile de France, was held at the Cirque d'hiver in Paris on Sept 25, 26 and 27 Sept, 2009.

#The same show but with the English title of "Mama Africa: Celebrating Miriam Makeba" was held at the Barbican in London on November 21, 2009.

#"Throughout her life, Mama Makeba communicated a positive message to the world about the struggle of the people of South Africa and the certainty of victory over the dark forces of apartheid colonialism through the art of song," said Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. #A documentary film about the life of Miriam Makeba, co-written and directed by Finnish film director Mika Kaurismäki, was also released in 2011.

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