10 November 2008

"MAMA AFRICA" -MIRIAM MAKEBA IS NO MORE!


Rome - South African singer Miriam Makeba has died aged 76 after being taken ill following a concert near the southern Italian town of Caserta, Ansa news agency reported on Monday.

Makeba was the legendary voice of the African continent, who became a symbol of the fight against apartheid in her home country.

She died overnight after taking part in a concert for Roberto Saviano, a writer threatened with death by the Mafia, the Italian agency said.

She sang for half an hour for the young author of Gomorrah at Castel Volturno near Naples along with other singers and artistes.

She was taken ill and was quickly taken to a clinic in Castel Volturno where she died of a heart attack, Ansa said.

Career

Makeba was born in Johannesburg on March 4, 1932. She made an international farewell tour in 2005.

Born from a Swazi mother and Xhosa father, Makeba captured international attention as vocalist for the South African group, The Manhattan Brothers, while they toured the United States in 1959.

The following year, when she wanted to return home to bury her mother, the apartheid state revoked her citizenship and later also banned her music. As a result she spent 31 years in exile, living in the United States and later in Guinea.

She became the first black African woman to receive a Grammy Award, which she shared with folk singer Harry Belafonte in 1965.

Two years later her fame sky-rocketed with the recording of the all-time hit Pata Pata (Xhosa for "touch, touch" describing a township dance) although she unknowingly signed away all royalties on the song.

She hit an all-time low in 1985 when her only daughter, Bongi, died aged 36 from complications from a miscarriage. Makeba did not have money to buy a coffin for Bongi, and buried her alone barring a handful of journalists covering the funeral.

But she picked herself up again, as she did many times before, like when her father died at a young age, or when she recovered from cervix cancer, or her many unhappy relationships, or unfounded rumours of alcoholism, according to her biography.

She returned to South Africa in the 1990s after Mandela was released from prison but it took a cash-strapped Makeba six years to find someone in the local recording industry to produce a record with her.

She since released Homeland which contains a song describing her joy to be back home after the many years in exile in which she spoke out against apartheid and testified twice before the United Nations.

"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," she said in her biography.



5 November 2008

BARACK OBAMA--God No Di Sleep!!


It's a wonderful day for me and i obviously believe for more than many of you.The weekend began so well with Joe Wilfred Tsonga winning his first tournament in the Paris Tennis Open and subsequently the stunning victory of lewis Hamilton in the Formula 1 world championships,after a drammatic show down in Brasile to become the first black and youngest winner of this competition.And that's where i affirmed the fact that"GOD NO DI SLEEP" and i knew the miracle was on the way.
It was 5AM in the morning here in Cameroon and we kept vigil all night long waiting for this HISTORIC MOMENT.In Africa we say "GOD NO DI SLEEP" meaning that God doesn't sleep.Infact,God's time is the best and he sent us this man BARACK OBAMA to enable MARTIN LUTHER KING's famous "i have a dream" to become reality,at a moment when the world needed this dream at the most,the whole world i mean.
Barack Obama made history early today by becoming America’s first black president.
'It's been a long time coming, but tonight... change has come to America,' the president-elect told jubilant supporters in Chicago."The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you -- we as a people will get there," Obama said in Chicago, Illinois, before an estimated crowd of up to 240,000 people.
Americans emphatically elected Democrat Barack Obama as their first black president Tuesday, in a transformational election, which will reshape US politics and the US role on the world stage.

Obama, 47, will be inaugurated the 44th US president on January 20, 2009, and inherit an economy mired in the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a nuclear showdown with Iran.

His presidency also marks a stunning social shift, with Obama, the son of Kenyan father and white mother from Kansas, the first African American president of a nation still riven by racial divides.