Fare thee well, Mama Afrika
By JESSE MASAI
On a grassy knoll in Central Pennsylvania stands the house in which I had some intimate encounters with Miriam Makeba in my college days. Rafiki House, as it is still known, was the place all African students would take retreat and to it bring all kinds of food, games, humor and music. Those among us obsessed with antiques had everything from Makeba, better known as Mama Afrika, to the more contemporary Koffi Olomide.
A few years before, I had watched Makeba act in Sarafina, the critically acclaimed film that at the time spoke to the ills and excesses of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
The location had been the Anglican high school I attended, where Makeba and not a few other African legends were generally considered next to Lucifer in cleanliness.
Needless to say, we consumed Makeba and other “contraband” beneath our blankets in the dorms or our desks in class if the content was a steamy novel, as wont to be the case occasionally.
Makeba made those days so rich, that we not only sang along but composed songs by which to tease our opponents in debating and sporting events. The more adventurous among us sought inspiration from her in making their amorous intentions known to daughters of Eve, with checkered outcomes.
Music, after all, had been transformed into the food of love.
But Makeba’s music had a bolder ring to it – she was coming to us in the lengthy tradition of Southern Africa’s melodious tunes of protest literature, which often found beautiful expression through such other figures as Peter Abrahams, Ezekiel Mphalele, Alex La Guma, Brenda Fassie and Lucky Dube.
South African exiles were largely known for their quick command of Kiswahili and desire to make the most of their times away from home, but nothing inspired their host nations and those whose lives they became part of by dint of presence more than their music.
In Makeba, most Africans had come to recognize bits of themselves and an enduring expression of the consolations they found in love and faith, the vagaries of life notwithstanding; this was something she had come to embody with her 31 heady years away from home.
Africa’s first artist to win a Grammy, the 76-year-old was a household name in West Africa – having lived in Guinea with Stokely Carmichael, one of the men in her troubled love life.
On the other hand, East Africans adored the earth beneath her feet for her moving adaptation of their much beloved Malaika, - Swahili for angel and an emotive ode to a love unmet because the girl thought her suitor too poor for her.
The rest of the world knew her for Click Song and Pata Pata, her most popular songs that remained banned in apartheid South Africa.
In all her productions and performances, she was hailed as Africa’s first world-class musician with her unique blend of style and substance from various genres and traditions.
She typified the rare breed of African artists who feel the hearts of their audiences, and put words to their innermost feelings and longings.
This crucial part of African art has died with her as the breed of African “celebrities” left have no inspiration or imagination and few can express anyone’s feelings completely, even their own am afraid.
Her works were a portrayal of the darkest passions of the human soul and the many possibilities offered by liberal democracy. Her enduring musical success after apartheid was equally testament to the strength of the human spirit, and its triumph against the odds of tyranny. Her life was a sustained meditation on the Africa most of us have come to love, and should interest for generations to come those who would be keen to understand the sometimes very personal nuances of stories that emerge in this kind of world.
I last heard her belch out her Pata Pata a day before she died, thanks to this esteemed magazine’s editor, who had provided me with a priceless weblink to free African music.
In life, as in death, Makeba was bestriding my stage like a colossus.
Rest in peace, Mama Afrika.
Suggested resources:
BBC backgrounder
Mandela’s tribute
Miriam singing Pata Pata
Miriam singing Click Song
Miriam singing Malaika ((audio only)
Miriam singing Nkosi Sikeleli alongside other artistes (video)
_________________________________________________
