WORLD> Africa
South African musical legend Miriam Makeba dies
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-11 14:56

After three decades abroad, Makeba was invited back to South Africa by Mandela shortly after his release from prison in 1990 as white racist rule crumbled.

Miriam Makeba, seen here in 1964 and who was the musical symbol of black South Africans' struggle against apartheid, has died at the age of 76 after collapsing at a concert in Italy. [Agencies]

"It was like a revival," she said about going home. "My music having been banned for so long, that people still felt the same way about me was too much for me. I just went home and I cried."

Tributes flooded in Monday from across Africa.

Congo's minister of culture, Esdras Kambale, called Makeba a role model for all Africans.

"We are very saddened," Kambale said. "Fortunately, she left a large body of music that will be immortal."

Percussionist Papa Kouyate, who played in Makeba's band for 20 years and is the widower of her daughter Bongi, remembered Makeba as a giving person.

"I married her daughter Bongi and she adopted me as her own child," he said. "I will mourn Mama Africa for a long time."

Still, Makeba attracted controversy by lending support to dictators such as Togo's Gnassingbe Eyadema and Felix Houphouet-Boigny from Ivory Coast, performing at political campaigns for them even as they violently suppressed democratic movements in West Africa in the early 90s.

The first person to give her refuge was Guinea's former President Ahmed Sekou Toure, who has been accused in the slaughtering of 10 percent of his country's population.

Makeba insisted, however, that her songs were not deliberately political.

"I'm not a political singer," she insisted in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper earlier this year. "I don't know what the word means. People think I consciously decided to tell the world what was happening in South Africa. No! I was singing about my life, and in South Africa we always sang about what was happening to us, especially the things that hurt us."

Makeba announced her retirement three years ago, but despite a series of farewell concerts she never stopped performing. When she turned 75 last year, she said she would sing for as long as possible.

Makeba is survived by her grandchildren, Nelson Lumumba Lee and Zenzi Monique Lee, and her great-grandchildren Lindelani, Ayanda and Kwame. A funeral will be held in South Africa, but details have not yet been announced.

Photographer Jurgen Schadeberg, who shot widely acclaimed pictures of Makeba for Drum magazine in the 50s, felt she epitomized the era where politics and culture collided in a heady mix.

"We are losing our great divas," he lamented by telephone from France.