South African singing legend Miriam Makeba (© AFP / Getty Images)
MonteCarloSouth African singing icon Miriam Makeba will star at the prestigious World Athletics Gala in the Salle des Etoiles of the Sporting Club d’Eté, Monte-Carlo, on the evening of Sunday 12 November.
The annual athletics awards ceremony which is hosted by International Athletic Foundation (IAF) Honorary President HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco and IAF & IAAF President Lamine Diack, will witness the crowning of the World Athletes of the Year, and recognise several other athletic achievements with a variety of awards.
The legendary vocal talents of Makeba, affectionately known the world over as ‘Mama Africa’, will entertain these world stars of athletics, who will form part of a distinguished audience of 600+ guests on the evening.
The first African to win a Grammy, Makeba’s ballad and jazz repertoire mixed with the sounds of African groove have formed the rhythm to an astounding singing career which has spanned four decades.
Makeba, the height of whose international fame was marked by her 1967 hit “Pata Pata”, has played to a who’s who of celebrities including several heads of state. Notably the singer was the only foreign artist to be apart of the birthday salute to US President Kennedy in 1961.
A vehement and appropriately vocal campaigner against apartheid, Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording together with Harry Belafonte for ‘An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba’. The latter album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid.
In 1963, after an impassioned testimony before the United Nations Committee Against Apartheid, her records were banned in South Africa and her South African citizenship and her right to return to the country were revoked.
She lived in the USA for many years before moving to Guinea, for whom she served as a delegate to the United Nations, in the process winning the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize in 1986.
In 1987, Makeba appeared in Paul Simon's Graceland tour, and with the fall of apartheid she was persuaded by Nelson Mandela to return to South Africa in 1990.
In 2002, she shared the Polar Music Prize with Sofia Gubaidulina, and in 2004, was voted 38th in the Top-100 Great South Africans.
IAAF