Miriam Makeba

Miriam Makeba was a Grammy Award-winning South African singer, and in the 1960s she was the first prominent artist from the African continent to popularize African music around the world, AND remembered as the mother of what we term today as world music.

Affectionately called Mama Africa, Makeba is known for songs like “Pata Pata” and the song “Mbube” meaning “Lion” composed by Solomon Linda in 1939 and later covered by a number of vocal groups in the U.S. Mbube is also a form of South African music blended with Anglican hymnody, ragtime and American jazz which gave Mbube a distinctive vocal-harmonic style. (#24)