Miriam Makeba, born in 1932 in Johannesburg, South Africa, was a renowned singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Known as “Mama Africa,” she gained international acclaim for her powerful vocals and fusion of traditional African music with jazz and pop. Makeba used her platform to speak out against apartheid, leading to her exile from South Africa in the 1960s. Despite this, she continued to advocate for social justice through her music, collaborating with artists like Harry Belafonte. Makeba’s iconic songs like “Pata Pata” and “The Click Song” brought attention to the struggles of her homeland and propelled her to global fame. Throughout her career, she received numerous accolades, including a Grammy Award. Makeba’s legacy as a cultural icon and symbol of resistance endures, inspiring generations with her music and activism. She passed away in 2008, leaving behind a lasting impact on the world.

Miriam Makeba Quotes

1. “Be careful, think about the effect of what you say. Your words should be constructive, bring people together, not pull them apart.”
— Miriam Makeba

2. “Age is wisdom if one has lived one’s life properly.”
— Miriam Makeba

3. “The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don’t expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us…”
— Miriam Makeba

4. “There are three things I was born with in this world, and there are three things I will have until the day I die – hope, determination, and song.”
— Miriam Makeba

5. “Age is getting to know all the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the world the way you want, you can at least get out of the way so you won’t get run over.”
— Miriam Makeba

6. “I will probably die singing.”
— Miriam Makeba

7. “Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.”
— Miriam Makeba

8. “Girls are the future mothers of our society, and it is important that we focus on their well-being.”
— Miriam Makeba

9. “If given a choice, I would have certainly selected to be what I am: one of the oppressed instead of one of the oppressors.”
— Miriam Makeba

10. “I titled the album Reflections because I am reflecting on my music career.”
— Miriam Makeba

11. “I’m not a politician; I am a singer. Long ago, they said, ‘That one, she sings politics.’ I don’t sing politics; I merely sing the truth.”
— Miriam Makeba

12. “But if you are going to wear blinders then you do not know the world.”
— Miriam Makeba

13. “I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.”
— Miriam Makeba

14. “I look at the past and I see myself.”
— Miriam Makeba

15. “In the West the past is like a dead animal. It is a carcass picked at by the flies that call themselves historians and biographers. But in my culture the past lives. My people feel this way in part because death does not separate us from our ancestors.”
— Miriam Makeba

16. “I see other black women imitate my style, which is no style at all, but just letting our hair be itself. They call it the Afro Look.”
— Miriam Makeba

17. “And why is our music called world music? I think people are being polite. What they want to say is that it’s third world music. Like they use to call us under developed countries, now it has changed to developing countries, it’s much more polite.”
— Miriam Makeba

18. “African music, though very old, is always being rediscovered in the West.”
— Miriam Makeba

19. “Everybody now admits that apartheid was wrong, and all I did was tell the people who wanted to know where I come from how we lived in South Africa. I just told the world the truth. And if my truth then becomes political, I can’t do anything about that.”
— Miriam Makeba

20. “I do not sing politics. I merely sing the truth.”
— Miriam Makeba

21. “It is very much the theme of our President, President Thabo Mbeki, whose passion is for Africa to work together, and for Africans to get up and do things for us. We are trying as women to do things for ourselves.”
— Miriam Makeba

22. “In the mind, in the heart, I was always home. I always imagined, really, going back home.”
— Miriam Makeba

23. “I look at a stream and I see myself: a native South African, flowing irresistibly over hard obstacles until they become smooth and, one day, disappear – flowing from an origin that has been forgotten toward an end that will never be.”
— Miriam Makeba

24. “There are a lot of homes for boys, but very few for girls, that is why I chose to do for girls.”
— Miriam Makeba

25. “It was hard to be away from home, but I am glad that I am home now.”
— Miriam Makeba

26. “I have one thing in common with the emerging black nations of Africa: We both have voices, and we are discovering what we can do with them.”
— Miriam Makeba

27. “Belafonte sent his people to pick me up and I went back and shook his hand, then went back to my little flat. I was very happy to have met a president of the United States – little me!”
— Miriam Makeba

28. “I have to go and say farewell to all the countries that I have been to, if I can. I am 73 now, it is taxing on me.”
— Miriam Makeba

29. “You are damned and praised, or encouraged or discouraged by those who listen to you, and those who come to applaud you. And to me, those people are very important.”
— Miriam Makeba

30. “That was the only time my mother saw me on stage. At one point in the play I am strangled and my mother jumped from her seat and screamed: ‘No. You will not get away with murder. You cannot do this to my daughter.”
— Miriam Makeba

31. “And I believe that it becomes a troubled continent because there are those who must always cause confusion so that we do not keep these natural resources.”
— Miriam Makeba

32. “For instance, we’re always fighting amongst each other. Who gives us the arms? And then we become indebted to wherever we are buying them from – with what? The very resources we need to keep there.”
— Miriam Makeba

33. “Well there is a lot of work here for younger and older musicians now. Our Ministry of Culture has now really embarked on changing things for artists, and it is getting much better. We just have to organize ourselves as artists, and then things will be better.”
— Miriam Makeba