Miriam Makeba was the first African to win a Grammy, but only when she partnered with a US star, Harry Belafonte.
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African artists with major US industry support have the advantage - now more than ever.
Sylvia Mdunyelwa in Langa township in 2023.
Screengrab/YouTube/Scene It
Not just a great jazz singer, Sylvia Mdunyelwa was also an activist, educator, broadcaster and actress.
The late Sathima Bea Benjamin, jazz singer and composer, has a track on As-Shams Archive Volume 1.
Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images
The legendary As-Shams jazz label has released the first of several compilation albums recovered from its archive.
Gloria Bosman in 2022.
Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images
If you ever found yourself in the same room with Gloria Bosman, you were in for a lesson of a lifetime.
Angelique Kidjo on stage in Paris in 2021.
Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
Kidjo has a remarkable cultural vision that spans the globe but stays true to her roots.
Shane Cooper (striped shirt) with his Mabuta band members.
Photo by Aidan Tobias courtesy Shane Cooper
The album Follow the Sun shows how South African jazz draws from diversity to speak fluidly across borders.
Photo by James Andanson/Sygma via Getty Images
Makeba, who would have turned 90 on 4 March 2022, was a hugely influential artist and an icon of African liberation and identity.
Dolly Rathebe (centre) in detail of the album cover for Dolly Rathebe & Elite Swingsters.
Gallo Music Publishing
Her celebration of black life, black beauty and black humanity through her films and music was subversive.
Tsepo Tshola during the memorial service of Hugh Masekela in 2018.
Frennie Shivambu/Gallo Images
Schooled in music through church, he was driven by a fierce sense of belonging to Lesotho where he was born, and neighbouring South Africa.
Moeletsi Mabe/The Times/Gallo Images/Getty Images
The revered trombonist, composer and cultural activist never wished to be ‘the state composer’ but remained political until the end, in service of the people.
A group of colleagues taking up the viral #JerusalemaDanceChallenge in Cape Town.
NIC BOTHMA/EPA-EFE
Like Pata-Pata, Homeless and Mbube, the song Jerusalema is elevated by a historical moment in time and has the power to cross over to different audiences.
Jürgen Schadeberg in 1955 with trainee photographers at Drum, Peter Magubane, left, and Bob Gosani. Both became well-known photographers.
© Jürgen Schadeberg
The gift of his images lies in their depiction of the social worlds that apartheid sought to destroy, but that live on through the photographs.
Senegal’s singer Ismael Lo performs during the second Pan-African Cultural Festival (PANAF) in Algeria in 2009.
EPA/Mohamed Messara
Pan-African festival marked the emergence of a post-imperial world
Jonas Gwangwa in 2010.
Daniel Karmann/EPA
The politics of Jonas Gwangwa’s music have stayed constant over the years, and are also apparent in the eight albums he has released in South Africa since returning from 30 years of exile.
Dorothy Masuku composed and recorded close to 30 singles, several of which achieved major hit status.
Madelene Cronje/ Mail & Guardian
Songstress Dorothy Masuku once told South Africa’s public broadcaster that music was like breathing for her.
Jonas Gwangwa performing in Germany in 2010.
EPA
South African jazz veteran Jonas Gwangwa has been getting recognition for the pivotal role he played in ‘singing down apartheid.’
Hugh Masekela’s 30 years of exile began shortly after the Sharpeville Massacre.
Lee Celano/Reuters
Hugh Masekela’s itinerary-in-exile was loud and clear in his songs.
Hugh Masekela performing during the 16th Cape Town International Jazz Festival.
Esa Alexander/The Times
South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela made an impact across the world during his decades-long musical career.
Andile Gumbi beats down his opponent Given Mkhize in the King Kong musical.
John Hogg
The returned musical “King Kong” embodies the germinating seeds of two potential and mutually exclusive South Africas.
Meshack Mavuso played the role of ‘The Man with the Green Blanket’ in ‘Marikana the Musical’
@marikanathemusical
Two musicals set in working class mining communities – one in the UK and the other in South Africa – have diametrically opposed messages: one of hope; the other, despair.