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Miriam Makeba, Ghana’s Shame. by Amos Anyimadu
@AfricaTalks

Miriam Makeba and Ghana’s disgrace. Makeba held a Ghana passport at important moments. In 1982 she felt confident enough to quietly intervene in Ghana’s politics to secure the release of a political detainee she had known as part of Nkrumah’s entourage in Guinea. In important ways she died FOR Ghana - she was signing Pata Pata in protest at the brutal murder of six Ghanaians in Naples by the Mafia. A very bold woman. Yet when she died Ghana was confused and silent. Even the confused Radio Ghana report did not have the dignity to play her original version of Pata Pata but a commercial copy. In December 2008 we at AfricaTalks devoted our Christmas concert to Mama Africa and Geraldo Pino who died within that same time context. Here are some of the things I wrote in shame then. On Miriam Makeba, I have been profoundly disappointed with the way we handled her passing here in Ghana. Even Tunisia issued an official tribute and the Nigerian Labour Council issued a powerful statement. I think it points up very important aspects of the challenge we face in claiming our future based on the dues we have already paid- watch out for an AfricaTalks blog on “Geraldo Pino, Miriam Makeba and the Meta-Governance of our Future” soon. A tribute to the great African musicians Miriam Makeba and Geraldo Pino who died last week. Geraldino Pino was beginning to be rightly recognized as a global superstar in the last few months. Geraldo Pino integrated the West African sub region culturally. Born in Sierra Leone, he sung in the Ghanaian language Fante, even before he came to Ghana in the late sixties. When he arrived in Ghana he captured Ghanaian popular culture with his American Soul and created the late sixties sensation of “colo” and “kyenkyema” in Ghana as a powerful statement of youth culture in Ghana which permanently restructured Highlife, the dominant Ghanaian musical form – see the interesting perspective of the master Ghanaian blogger Koranteng Ofosu Amaah via the interesting Drum magazine of 1969 - http://koranteng.blogspot.com and http://www.flickr.com/…/24301…/in/set-72157604644978342/. Albert Jones - http://www.ghanamusic.com/2008/03/22/meet-albert-jones/ - the star Berlin-based Ghanaian musician, who is perhaps the Ghanaian who played longest in Geraldino Pino’s bands, has agreed to contribute a performance at the proposed launch. Francis Fuster , the Ghana-based Sierra Leone percussionist who played with Geraldino Pino from the beginning and also played with Miriam Makeba.
The picture is of Miriam Makeba in Ghana in 1965

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