Legendary South African songstress Miriam Makeba dies on stage at 76

Miriam Makeba, the legendary South African songstress known as "Mama Africa" and "The Empress of African Song," died after collapsing on stage during a concert in Italy.

Makeba, who gained fame and renown worldwide, was exiled from her own country for 31 years during apartheid. In exile, she sang for such leaders as President John F. Kennedy and performed with such musical greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, and Paul Simon.

In a statement issued after her death, Nelson Mandela said, "Her haunting melodies gave voice to the pain of exile and dislocation which she felt for 31 long years. At the same time, her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us."

He further noted that "Whilst this great lady was alive, she would say: 'I will sing until the last day of my life.' "

She was the first African woman to win a GRAMMY Award for Best Folk Recording in 1966, along with Harry Belafonte, for "An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba." The album voiced the plight of black South Africans under apartheid.

Makeba's exile began when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back Africa in 1959. The following year, when she attempted to come back to South Africa to attend her mother's funeral, she found that her passport had been revoked. She would not be allowed to come back to South Africa until the end of apartheid and Nelson Mandela's release from prison 30 years later.

Makeba's life in exile was not without controversy - in the early sixties she married black power activist Stokely Carmichael and decades later, supported dictators such as Togo's Gnassingbe Eyadema and the Ivory Coast's Félix Houphouet-Boigny, performing at their political campaigns even as they were brutally suppressing the democratic movements that were sweeping West Africa in the early 90s.

We played "The Click Song," one of Makeba's most famous songs, at our wedding.

Now, not just one but two famous female singers have died recently, within a week of each other. It MUST have something to do with the moon being in Scorpio ...