Zenzile Miriam Makeba – woman, lover, mother, grandmother, women’s rights activist, muse, and the human embodiment of what her late friend John Coltrane once referred to as “a love supreme” – has been gone from the world since 9 November 2008. But to me, Zenzile “Nut Brown Baby” Makeba, “the nightingale”, as she was known down Sophiatown’s back alleys, lives on.
Everyone remembers Makeba for her path-charting vocals on Promise, Hauteng, Naughty Little Flea, Sangoma, Holilili, Jolinkomo, Ring Bell, Ngewundini, Qongqothwane and so on. But she was also a fiercely contemporary African woman who gave the world a culturally evolved and evolving African aesthetic.
In her long career as a performer and champion of human rights, Makeba turned her personal style into visual commentary on her people’s triumphs and glories.…
