Miriam Makeba - ap

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP)

She died just how she wanted to, singing on stage for a good cause. And her songs wafted out of taxis and radios, as fellow Africans struggled with their grief at her passing.

Miriam Makeba, the 'Mama Africa' whose sultry voice gave South Africans hope when the country was gripped by apartheid, died early Monday of a heart attack after collapsing on stage in Italy. She was 76.

In her dazzling career, Makeba performed with musical legends from around the world - jazz maestros Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie, Harry Belafonte and Paul Simon - and sang for world leaders such as John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela.

Banned in South Africa

Her distinctive style, which combined jazz, folk and South African township rhythms, managed to get her banned from South Africa for over 30 years.

"Her haunting melodies gave voice to the pain of exile and dislocation which she felt for 31, long years. At the same time, her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us," Mandela said in a statement.

He said it was fitting that her last moments were spent on stage.

Makeba collapsed after singing one of her most famous hits, Pata Pata, her family said. Her grandson, Nelson Lumumba Lee, was with her, as well as her longtime friend, Italian promoter Roberto Meglioli.

"While this great lady was alive, she would say: 'I will sing until the last day of my life'," the family statement said.

Collapsed at concert

Makeba died at the Pineta Grande clinic in Castel Volturno, near the southern city of Naples, after singing at a concert expressing solidarity with six immigrants from Ghana who were shot to death in September in the town. Investigators have blamed the attack on organised crime.

The death of Mama Africa sent shock waves through South Africa, where callers flooded local radio stations with their recollections of her. In Guinea, where Makeba lived most of her decades in exile, radio and television stations played mournful music and tributes to their adopted icon.

The first African to win a Grammy award, Makeba started singing in Sophiatown, a cosmopolitan neighbourhood of Johannesburg that was a cultural hotspot in the 1950s before its black residents were forcibly removed by the apartheid government.

She then teamed up with South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela, later her first husband, and her rise to international prominence started in 1959 when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa.

When she tried to fly home for her mother's funeral the following year, she discovered her passport had been revoked.

In 1963, Makeba called for an international boycott of South Africa. The white-led South African government responded by banning her records, including hits like Pata Pata, The Click Song (Qongqothwane in Xhosa), and Malaika.

Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording in 1966 together with Belafonte for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba. The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid.

Makeba is survived by her grandchildren, Nelson Lumumba Lee and Zenzi Monique Lee, and her great-grandchildren Lindelani, Ayanda and Kwame. A funeral will be held in South Africa, but details have not yet been announced.