Archives West Finding Aid

Zenzile Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) was a South African singer and civil rights activist. She has been credited as having popularized the Afropop and world music genres in North America and Europe, and fought against apartheid and the white-minority government in South Africa.

Makeba was born in Johannesburg to Swazi and Xhosa parents and learned to sing from a young age. She began singing professionally in the 1950's and moved to New York in 1960, where her career flourished. Because of her involvement in the civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid movement, the South African government prevented her from returning to her home country until apartheid was dismantled in 1990. She died onstage of a heart attack during a concert in Italy in 2008.

Abraham Dumisani "Dumi" Maraire (1944-1999) was a Zimbabwean musician and singer-songwriter known for his mastery of the mbira, a traditional instrument of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. In particular, he specialized in the form of mbira called nyunga nyunga.

Maraire was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and studied music from an early age. From 1968 to 1972, he taught at the University of Washington in Seattle, and later taught at The Evergreen State College in Olympia. In 1982 he returned to Zimbabwe to create an ethnomusicology program at the University of Zimbabwe. He then came back to Seattle and the University of Washington to teach and obtain his doctorate in ethnomusicology. He died in Zimbabwe in 1999 of a stroke.

Maraire is often credited as having introduced Zimbabwean music to North America, as well as cultivating the Zimbabwean music scene in the Pacific Northwest. His children, Chiwoniso Maraire and Tendai "Baba" Maraire are both musicians, the latter forming half of Seattle hip hop duo Shabazz Palaces.