Track Listing

1. Iya Guduza
2. Pata Pata
3. Comme une Symphonie d'Amour
4. Mas Que Nada
5. Click Song
6. African Convention
7. I'm in Love With Spring
8. Xica da Silva
9. Love Tastes Like Strawberries
10. I Shall Sing
11. Quit It
12. Ring Bell
13. Where Are You Going?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28974 in Music
• Released on: 2004-06-22
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.com
For over five decades, the South African vocalist and anti-Apartheid icon Miriam Makeba, aka "Mama Africa," put her country's music on the map and was an early world music pioneer. This multilingual CD features percussion, string, and horn arrangements of old and new songs, including contributions by her ex-husband Hugh Masakela and composer Caiphus Semenya. "I'm in Love with Spring" is a lush duet with singer Nelson Lumumba Lee. Van Morrison's "I Shall Sing" is rendered in an infectious motherland pulse, matched by the bouncy Braziian numbers "Mas Que Nada," and "Xica Da Silva" by Jorge Ben. But Makeba's 21st-century retakes of her Xhosa-language, township-tempo classics "Pata Pata" and "Click Song" are the high points here. Though her voice is tempered by the wear and tear of time, the regality and rhythms of her homeland still ring through. --Eugene Holley, Jr.

Customer Reviews

Strong album by a world-pop elder
Makeba revisits many of her older hits -- "Pata Pata," "The Click Song" and others -- with glitzy, big, modern world-pop arrangements. It's a surprisingly strong, fresh-sounding set, and even old-timers who are devoted to the old, original renditions should be cheered to hear Makeba still in such fine form. She also includes a couple of songs by Brazilian superstar Jorge Ben for good measure. More power to her!

Her most far-reaching and sophisticated recording yet
In what might be her most far-reaching and sophisticated recording yet, Miriam Makeba reaches way back to the 1950s, and all the decades in between, re-recording some of her biggest hits and mixing them into an international stew of lovely, well-written songs that show off as never before just what a great singer she truly is with REFLECTIONS.
The arrangements are slick, but only occasionally too slick for my taste (i.e. violins on the fadeout to a Mbaquanga song).

Miriam Makeba, "Reflections"
Outstanding, the music never gets stale. Makes me want to dance. You go girl!