Miriam Makeba Quotes
-
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
I didn't have much, but I was always happy to share what I did have. It seemed like every African that came to New York City would show up at my apartment door at dinnertime, and I couldn't turn them away. I wasn't much older than any of them, but they started calling me 'Mama Africa' and the name stuck.
→ -
African music, though very old, is always being rediscovered in the West.
→ -
I look at the past and I see myself.
→ -
Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them
→ -
If given a choice, I would have certainly selected to be what I am: one of the oppressed instead of one of the oppressors.
→ -
In New York I heard A Piece of Ground, written by a white South African, Jeremy Taylor. I modified it a little and sang it myself. That song is very special to me because it deals with the land question in southern Africa. We were dispossessed of our land.
→ -
I will probably die singing.
→ -
In the mind, in the heart, I was always home. I always imagined, really, going back home.
→ -
There are a lot of homes for boys, but very few for girls, that is why I chose to do for girls.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
I titled the album Reflections because I am reflecting on my music career.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
I do not sing politics. I merely sing the truth.
→ -
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.
→ -
People in the United States still have a 'Tarzan' movie view of Africa. That's because in the movies all you see are jungles and animals . . . We [too] watch television and listen to the radio and go to dances and fall in love.
→ -
When I was young, I never bought records because my brother Joseph played saxophone and had a record player. I loved listening to his records: The Dorsey Brothers, Duke Ellington, all the big American jazz bands, and vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, Ernestine Anderson, and Kitty White, a singer from the US who was a friend of Nina Simone. Nobody in America seems to know about her, but she was quite popular in South Africa.
→ -
I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa and the people without even realising.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
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!
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
Age is wisdom if one has lived ones life properly.
→ -
It's a really unfair world because life is, where I am; all day long we listen to American music. So I don't see why the radios in the U.S. cannot even put aside one hour a day just to play music that is not American.
→ -
Girls are the future mothers of our society, and it is important that we focus on their well-being.
→
Related Authors
-
Hugh Masekela Trumpeter -
Paul Simon Musician -
Stokely Carmichael Activist -
Brenda Fassie Singer -
Dizzy Gillespie Bandleader -
Malcolm X Human rights activist -
Eldridge Cleaver Writer -
Youssou N'Dour Singer -
Letta Mbulu Singer -
Vusi Mahlasela Singer-songwriter -
Odetta Singer -
Abdullah Ibrahim Jazz Pianist -
Simphiwe Dana Singer, writer -
Huey Newton Political Activist -
Harry Belafonte Singer -
Nina Simone Singer -
Angelique Kidjo Singer-songwriter -
Herb Alpert Musician -
Nelson Mandela Former President of South Africa -
Fela Kuti Multi-instrumentalist