Reading Between the Lines: Miriam Makeba’s Shifting Liberation Politics in Drum Magazine, 1957–1964

Based on archival research conducted at the Bailey’s African History Archive (BAHA) in Johannesburg, this article explores how the South African edition of Drum magazine covered the South African and international superstar singer, Miriam Makeba, prior to and as she left South Africa for the world’s stage in 1959, and into the mid 1960s while she was beginning her exiled life in the United States. I analyse Makeba’s life through Drum using the model of New Africanism theorist Ntongela Masilela to showcase Makeba’s transition from a quintessential New African performer to a black international pan-African figure remaking her life and politics on the global stage. Reading between the lines of how Drum covered Makeba’s political transition from 1957 to 1964 also reveals the reasons why Drum had dissolved by the mid 1960s, as its theoretical and contextual foundation of New Africanism was abandoned for more radical politics following the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre and its aftermath. My article adds an historical analysis of Makeba’s engagement in the pages of Drum while also attending to the shifting political climate of South Africa and the globe. Reading Drum as the leading voice in broadcasting New African ideals and images from the early 1950s to the mid 1960s, I deduce that not only does the magazine make a compelling argument for Makeba as an important New African figure, but her coverage also prescribes the end of New Africanism and Drum magazine itself.