WOMAD South Africa is celebrating the enduring legacy of Miriam Makeba in Cape Town on Wednesday, bringing music, poetry, storytelling and community together in a special tribute to one of Africa’s most influential global musical voices.
The event forms part of WOMAD Cape Town 2026, which runs from 15 to 24 September across the city. According to Artscape Theatre Centre, the Makeba tribute is being presented with Drumstruck at Silvermist Wine Estate.
A voice that travelled beyond South Africa
Makeba’s international career helped carry South African and African music to audiences far beyond the continent. Her work crossed music, cultural representation and public life, making her one of the most recognisable African performers of the twentieth century.
The WOMAD tribute uses that legacy as a point of connection between generations, combining performance with storytelling rather than treating Makeba’s contribution simply as musical history.
Culture as exchange
The wider WOMAD Cape Town programme brings together artists and creative practitioners from South Africa and abroad across music, dance, workshops and collaborative performances.
Artscape says accessibility, representation and cultural exchange are central to the 2026 programme. Events include performances involving disabled artists, indigenous storytelling and collaborations intended to connect ancestral knowledge with contemporary creative practice.
That context gives the Makeba celebration a contemporary dimension. African music now travels through global streaming platforms, festivals and diaspora audiences at a scale that earlier generations of performers could not have imagined, but questions of cultural identity, representation and ownership remain important.
Makeba’s career remains part of the history behind that global visibility. WOMAD’s Cape Town tribute places that history alongside the artists and cultural communities continuing to shape how African creativity is presented to the world.
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