Makeba began her professional musical career with the Cuban Brothers, a South African all-male close harmony group, with whom she sang covers of popular American songs. Soon afterward, at the age of 21, she joined a jazz group, the Manhattan Brothers, who sang a mixture of South African songs and pieces from popular African-American groups.
Who is Miriam Makeba husband Stokely Carmichael?
Miriam Makeba wasn’t so lucky in the romance department as she has been married three times during her lifetime.
Miriam Makeba first married James Kubay in 1949. He was a policeman in training, with whom she had her only child, Bongi Makeba, in 1950. Makeba was then diagnosed with breast cancer, and her husband, who was said to have abused her, left her shortly afterward, after a two-year marriage. A few years after surviving breast cancer she was diagnosed and overcame cervical cancer via a hysterectomy.
She later got married to Sonny Pilay in 1959 but ended things quickly.
From 1964 to 1966 she was married to Hugh Masekela, and from 1968 to 1978 she was married to Stokely Carmichael, who was a leader of the Black Panther Party,
Makeba’s career and public image shifted after her 1968 marriage to Stokely Carmichael, a noted Civil Rights activist and proponent of the Black Power movement.
