Footnotes

Literature
Jürgen Schadeberg, ed. ralf - p seippel , (Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2008), p. 18. (illustrated)
The Black And White Fifties: Jurgen Schadeberg's South Africa, (South Africa: Protea Book House, 2001), p. 12.
Initiative Art Conseil editions, Jürgen Schadeberg Photographies, (France: Deux-Ponts, 2006), p. 3. (illustrated)
Jazz, Blues & Swing, six decades of music in South Africa, ed. Sean Fraser, (South Africa: David Philips Publishers, 2007), p. 38. (illustrated)
Jurgen Schadeberg, Witness, (South Africa: Protea Book House, 2004), p. 93. (illustrated)

Born in Germany during the Nazi regime in 1931, Schadeberg would follow his mother to South Africa in 1950 when she emigrated in 1947 with a British soldier following World War II. Arriving in South Africa at a time when the practises of the state were oppressing the majority of the population under apartheid, Justice Albie Sachs cited that Schadeberg's photographs were that of "annunciation, not of denunciation" (2001, p. 8.). Schadeberg captures the humanity of his subjects, capturing "the joy and vitality of people from the oppressed community who had confidence that a new and more beautiful world would emerge one day."(p. 8).

The present work was shot four years into Jürgen Schadeberg's employment at Drum magazine for their front cover. Miriam Makeba is undoubtedly one of the photographer's most iconic works, capturing Makeba mid-song, full of emotion, eyes closed in a recording studio in Johannesburg. Makeba was classed as one of the leading songbirds of the 1950s and went on to find great success in America after leaving South Africa in the early 1960s to perform with the jazz opera 'King Kong'. Makeba regularly spoke publicly against Apartheid, even speaking at the United Nations in 1962, condemning the inhumanity and injustice of the oppressive system. Remaining in America until 1994, Makeba returned to South Africa to continue speaking out and advocating for peace and humanity cementing herself as a civil rights activist as well as a musical icon.