Bongi Makeba

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Bongi Makeba (born December 20, 1950 in Pretoria , South Africa , † March 17, 1985 in Conakry , Guinea ; actually Sibongile Angela Makeba ) was a singer and songwriter .

Bongi Makeba was the only child of the South African singer Miriam Makeba . Her father was James "Gooli" Kubay, whose marriage with Miriam Makeba in 1951 divorced. She had a son, Nelson Lumumba Lee , in New York City in April 1968 at the age of 17 ; the father was the American musician Nelson Lee , from whom she also had a daughter, Zenzi Monique Lee . Bongi Makeba accompanied her mother to Guinea when, at the end of the 1960s, due to her closeness to the Black Panther movement, she hardly had any chance to perform in the USA and was observed by the FBI . The family thus accepted an offer from the Guinean monarch Ahmed Sékou Touré , with whom a friendly relationship subsequently existed. At that time, Bongi Makeba wrote several songs for her mother and other South African musicians. On the state-owned Guinean label Syliphone , some recordings of Bongi, together with her mother and her husband, were released in the 1970s. In 1980 Bongi Makeba recorded her only solo album, Blow On Wind , which was released outside of Guinea on pläne records.

On March 17, 1985, Makeba died under mysterious circumstances in Guinea's capital Conakry, apparently as a result of a caesarean section with a stillbirth . Their children Nelson Lumumba and Zenzi Lee are musicians themselves. Nelson Lumumba Lee recorded some of his mother's pieces with his grandmother Miriam.

Discography

Singles

  • Everything, For My Love / Do You Remember, Malcolm? (1971, Syliphone SYL 532), together with husband Nelson Lee as Bongi and Nelson
  • That's the Kind of Love / I Was so Glad (1971, Syliphone SYL 533), as Bongi and Nelson

Albums

  • Myriam Makeba et Bongi (1975, Syliphone SLP 48), together with Miriam Makeba
  • Blow On Wind (1980, plans )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sashni Pather: Family safeguards Makeba legacy ( Memento of 17 November 2009 at the Internet Archive ). Article from November 15, 2009 on Times Live , the website of the South African Sunday Times
  2. ↑ Miriam Makeba at fembio.org (English), accessed on October 26, 2018
  3. ↑ Miriam Makeba, James Hall: Homeland Blues. A colored life . Goldmann Verlag, ISBN 3-442-09799-1 .
  4. ↑ BBC : Obituary: Miriam 'Mama Africa' Makeba
personal data
SURNAME Makeba, Bongi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Makeba, Sibongile Angela (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African singer and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Pretoria , South Africa
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1985
Place of death Conakry , Guinea