Public memorial for Makeba
2008-11-14 11:05
Johannesburg - A public memorial for singing legend Miriam Makeba, who died recently after a performance in Italy, will be held on Saturday in an enormous Johannesburg concert hall, a spokesperson said.
The memorial will be held in the Coca Cola Dome, one of South Africa's top concert venues that can accommodate nearly 20 000 people, arts ministry spokesperson Sandile Memela told AFP on Friday.
The service is open to the public, but will be attended by her family and is expected to attract South Africa's biggest artists to pay respect to the woman known foundly as "Mama Afrika".
"There will be musicians, actors, artists," Memela said.
On Sunday, the family is expected to hold a smaller service for her cremation, he added.
National mourning
South Africa on Thursday began a period of national mourning for the Grammy-winning singer whose music conveyed the experience of life under apartheid to people around the world.
Makeba made her final journey home on Wednesday, when her body was flown to Johannesburg from Italy, where she died after collapsing as she left the stage of a benefit concert on Sunday. She was 76.
Born in Johannesburg on March 4 1932, Makeba was one of Africa's best known singers, famed for hits such as Pata Pata and The Click Song, but also for speaking out about the abuses of apartheid.
South Africa's white regime revoked Makeba's citizenship in 1960 and even refused to let her return for her mother's funeral. The singer spent more than three decades in exile, living in the United States, Guinea and Europe.
Grammy award
Makeba won a Grammy award for Best Folk Recording with US singer Harry Belafonte in 1965. But her music was outlawed in her homeland after she appeared in an anti-apartheid film.
While she was still in enforced exile, she performed with Paul Simon in the US singer's 1987 Graceland concert in Zimbabwe, neighbouring South Africa.
She finally returned to her homeland in the 1990s after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, as the apartheid system they had both fought for so long began to be dismantled.
But it took her six years to find someone in the South African recording industry to produce a record with her. She entitled it Homeland.