Makeba

The last time I saw Miriam Makeba was in Boston 1992. She had the crowd on its feet at long last. I think she surprised herself. You see Boston which was at the time in my opinion the coldest and whitest city in the world did produce a requisite full house for the South African singer, but nobody in the audience was any good at keeping the beat. Nobody but me, my date and a smattering of other truly hip dudes and dudettes. I think we shall never know how to echo the life of that woman, as I reflect on that year of Jurassic Park and Janet Jackson.

I first came to know Makeba informally as a child. Pops was a huge fan of Hugh Masakela, her husband, but I didn't recognize her voice until I learned to actually dance the Pata Pata at the age of 14 at summer camp. Finally as an adult I purchased Sangoma and marveled at her extraordinary voice. I know that record backwards and forwards and it is in many ways part of the soundtrack of my young adulthood.

As a young Progressive wishing that some form of cultural production would levitate the fortunes and minds of my fellows, I often regarded the talents of my generation with regret. Nobody could sing like Nancy Wilson who might bother to be political. Beauty and politics were regrettably destined, it seemed, to be forever divergent. But South Africans singing of their freedom always seemed to be the exception from Sarafina to Ladysmith Black Mombazo. Yet surely we Americans were cherry picking. Still, Makeba's fruit was the sweetest. She had such a powerful and clarion voice, and of course in Xhosa she seemed to do gymnastics with her mouth that defied physics.

I'm going to be playing Sangoma this week starting tonight and reflect further on the brightness Makeba brought to my life.