Shortly after Miriam Makeba died on November 9, 2008, at the age of 76, her biggest fan and long-time friend, Nelson Mandela, hailed her as “the mother of our struggle”.
He also described her as “South Africa’s first lady of song”.
Mandela said her haunting melodies gave voice to the pain of exile.
“She… richly deserved the title of Mama Afrika,” he said.
“Her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us.
"Even after she returned home she continued to use her name to make a difference by mentoring musicians and supporting struggling young women.”
Like so many of the top musicians of her era, Makeba grew up poor.
When she was just 18 days old, her mother was arrested, charged and sentenced to six months in jail for selling umqombothi, a home-made beer brewed from malt and cornmeal.
Thus, Makeba’s first six months of life was spent in a prison cell.
She began showing talent as a singer from an early age, singing in the choir of her primary school, the Kilnerton Training Institute.
The first indication that music would be her calling was when she was still a teenager.
During a visit to family in Orlando East, Soweto, she was roped in as a singer for a group, the Cuban Brothers, headed by one of her cousins.
Then fate played her a wonderful hand.
“We were performing at the Donaldson Community Centre and the Manhattan Brothers, the most famous singing group at the time, were in the audience.
After hearing me sing, they asked me to join them.
This is where my career started,” she said.
While with the Manhattan Brothers, she recorded Mackay Davashe’s hit Lakutshon’ Ilanga, which would become a South African jazz standard.
Her partnership with the group proved tremendously beneficial for both Makeba and the group.
Music lovers both inside and outside South Africa formed long queues to see them. In 1954, they performed to sell-out crowds in the then Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Congo.
When the group returned to South Africa, Makeba was ready for her next challenge: she became the driving force behind the formation of an all-woman group, The Skylarks.
After a number of changes to the line-up, the group eventually consisted of Makeba, Mary Rabotapi, Abigail Kubeka, and Mummy Girl Nketle.
Often, the Skylarks would form a double bill with the Manhattan Brothers, and when this happened, Makeba would front both groups.
It was tough, she admitted.
“We used to sing from 8pm to midnight.
"In some halls there were no microphones. I had to carry the voices of the four men, leading them without a microphone.
Makeba’s biggest coup was when she auditioned for the musical King Kong and was chosen for the main female role, opposite Dambuza Mdledle of the Manhattan Brothers.
Firmly in the limelight, she received a further boost to her career when songs she performed for the anti-apartheid movie Come Back Africa drew critical acclaim during screenings of the movie at the Venice Film Festival.
It led to her being invited to the US to appear on TV or as she put it: “The movie was my audition to the US."
Helped by the singer Harry Belafonte, she returned to the US for a series, to critical applause for her rendition of songs such as Pata Pata.
By this time, her anti- apartheid activities had attracted the attention of the SA authorities, who refused to allow her to return to the land of her birth.
While in the US, she married fellow South African musician Hugh Masekela.
Later, after their marriage had ended in divorce, she married the Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael and settled in Guinea.
In 1990, she returned to South Africa after 31 years in exile, serving for a time as a member of Parliament in the new democratic dispensation.