Internationally renowned South African singer, Miriam Makeba died on Sunday in a hospital in Castel Volturno, Italy after she collapsed from a heart attack after a benefit concert. She was 76.

She is remembered by Sabrina Williams, one of Jamaica's foremost cabaret performers, as someone who instilled a great deal of black pride in her. Williams said that Makeba was her greatest inspiration.

"Miriam meant so much to me ever since I was a child listening to the Click Song, the Retreat Song and Patta Patta Patta. Miriam's image instilled so much black pride in me, I was one of the few who rejected straightening my hair. Then came the Black Power Movement, I read her autobiography and biographies as well as collected records," Sabrina Williams told the Observer.

Williams said that having read the biographies and collected numerous recordings of Miriam Makeba, she then learned all of Makeba's hit songs and since then included them in her repertoire.

"When she came to Jamaica in 1966, I made a point of going to her performance, spoke to her and gave her my recording of the Click Song produced by Sly Dunbar. I almost tear down the place to see her perform at the James Bond Beach.
I even kept the ticket on which she signed her autograph," recalled Williams who presently does a regular stint on the Discovery Sun's cruise ship.

"I called her name nearly every day - especially for the tourists I sing for the cruise ship Discovery Sun," Sabrina Williams added.

Miriam Zeni Makeba was born on March 4, 1932, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her mother was a Swazi Sangoma and her father, who died when she was six, was a Xhosa.

Her professional career began in the 1950s with the Manhattan Brothers, before she formed her own group, The Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional melodies of South Africa. In 1959 , she performed in the musical, King Kong, alongside the late Hugh Masekela who, she later married.

In 1966, Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording together with Harry Belafonte for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba. Owing to her activism against apartheid, she was banned for several decades from her native South Africa, and in 1960, discovered that her South African passport was revoked when she tried to return there for the funeral of her mother.

Her marriage to Trinidadian civil rights activist and Black Panthers leader the late Stokely Carmichael in 1968, resulted in controversy in the United States, and her record deals and tours were cancelled. Her marriage to Carmichael ended in 1973. After the death of her only daughter Bongi Makeba in 1985, she moved to Brussels. In 1987, Miriam Makeba appeared on Paul Simon's Graceland tour, and shortly thereafter published her autobiography, Makeba: My Story.

Miriam Makeba, who was often referred to as "Mama Africa", was one of the continent's most revered and beloved entertainer, gave two memorable performances in Jamaica. First for a fund-raiser for former Prime Minister, PJ Patterson in 1996, and some time after on the Telefood International concert at the James Bond Beach.

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