Makeba wins music award

By Kalungi KabuyeIn 1989, the late Swedish musician Stig Anderson (who served for a long time as the manager of the group ABBA), gave a lot of money to set up an international music prize that will ‘recognise exceptional achievements in the creation and advancement of music.’Two weeks ago, Miriam Makeba from South Africa and Russian Sofia Gubaidulina, were announced this year’s winners of the $100,000 Polar Music Prize. They joined 21 previous winners who include Paul McCartney, Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springstein.Announcing the winners at the Royal Swedish Academy, Ake Holmquist, the Chairman of the Board and Award Committee, said both winners were frustrated in their musical ambitions and denied the right of public expression by their respective governments. He also said that the two faced oppression, censorship and harassment.Makeba, who turned 70 on the same day of the announcement, has long been known as the mother of African music (Mama Africa). “She embodied the concept of world music long before the term even existed on the musical map. In the 1960s, her expressive voice drew attention to the musical riches of the African continent. At the same time, she helped in raising awareness of the horrors of the South African apartheid regime in the outside world,” her citation read.Makeba has received numerous international awards, including a Grammy Award in 1959 for An Evening With Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba. Her many hits include the 1967 worldwide hit, Pata Pata.She is also famous for popularising the Click Song, a traditional South African wedding song. She was banned from returning to South Africa in 1960, and spent the next 30 years in exile, a ‘citizen of the world.’Gubaidulina, on the other hand, is a classical musician from Russia, but whose roots lie in the now autonomous Republic of Tartar: “I am that place where east and west meet,” she was quoted as describing herself.A devout Russian Orthodox Christian, she wants her music to ‘bring cohesion to a fragmented world.’She was awarded the prize because her ‘intensely expressive and deeply personal music idiom has the ability to speak to an ever-growing audience of listeners all over the world.’The two winners will receive their prizes from King Carl Gustav XVI of Sweden at a gala to be held in Stockholm on May 27, this year.ends