About this Image

Miriam Makeba sweats with emotion at a stage performance in Lesotho, 1981. In perhaps one of Kumalo’s most iconic images, Makeba was captured pouring forth her soul at an anti-apartheid concert in Lesotho in 1980. The concert, which Kumalo helped organise, drew around 75 000 people who came to see both Makeba and Masekela play for the first time in southern Africa since their exile. The concert was billed as a “Welcome Home” for Masekela and Makeba. The image sees Makeba, her microphone held in a prayer-like manner with rivers of perspiration bathing her face, in a plaintive, almost pained, mood. The image captures perfectly the torment and tragedy of Makeba’s exile from her homeland.