Google commemorates Miriam Makeba's birthday

Google features Miriam Makeba on their homepage to mark the day Mama Africa was born, (04 March)

The 'Google doodle', is usually the Google logo in the middle when you hit the homepage of Google's search engine.

This logo's artwork changes to commemorate special events. Today, it's all about Mama Africa's birthday.

Shewould've been 81 today. She is the 1st South African to be honoured with her own Google doodle.

Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008), nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award-winning South African singer and civil rights activist.

In the 1960s she was the first artist from Africa to popularize African music in the U.S. and around the world. She is best known for the song "Pata Pata", first recorded in 1957 and released in the U.S. in 1967. She recorded and toured with many popular artists, such as Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, and her former husband Hugh Masekela.

She actively campaigned against the South African system of apartheid. As a result, she discovered that her South African passport had been revoked in 1960 and the South African government revoked her citizenship and right of return in 1963. As the apartheid system crumbled she returned home for the first time in 1990.

Makeba died of a heart attack on 9 November 2008 after performing in a concert in Italy organized to support writer Roberto Saviano in his stand against the Camorra, a mafia-like organisation local to the region of Campania.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU MAMA AFRICA.

Check out the Pata Pata...