Mama Africa, The Empress of African Song … Miriam Makeba transcended music in almost every way. Here, at this 1985 concert in Italy, we find her near the end of a long, thirty-year battle against apartheid in her native South Africa. She had been in exile for almost all of that period, a result of using her gifts as a platform to speak out and affect change. Over the previous decade she’d been banned from many countries (including France), used several passports to travel, and had assembled a scattered group of Pan African musicians who could fill in and support her when she performed live.
By this point she was living in Brussels with her fourth husband and had just lost her beloved daughter, Bongi. It was a tragedy that rocked her to her core and marked a final blow in a series of painful experiences. Yet, the end of Apartheid was drawing near, as well as the release of Nelson Mandela and her return to South Africa. Though her path had been intertwined with that of a nation, Makeba maintained the purity of her vision. In a concert in London during the same year, she told the audience: “what I sing is not politics, it is the truth. I’m going to go on singing, telling the truth.”
