Google Pays Tribute To 'Miriam Makeba' With Doodle

• Miriam Makeba, the South African chanteuse renowned for her collaborations with Calypso king Harry Belafonte and folk legend Paul Simon on his the tours of seminal world music album Graceland in 1987, received tribute from Google in the form of a doodle on her 81st birthday.

• Born in Johannesburg on March 4, 1932, Makeba gained initial fame in 1959 during a tour of the United States with South African group the Manhattan Brothers.

• Makeba's was a strong voice against her home country's racist apartheid government. She ran afoul of the government in 1960 after she participated in Come Back, Africa, an anti-apartheid documentary, a year earlier.
• She was responsible for popularising African music in the United States. With iconic traditional flowing gowns and hairstyles, she would belt out music that was richly flavoured by her African roots and childhood Jazz influences.

• In 2008, after a concert in the southern Italian town of Caserta, Makeba, the first African woman to address the United Nations (where she testified against apartheid in 1963), passed away.