South African singer Miriam Makeba and then state minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, Dudley Thompson, during Makeba's February, 1973 visit to Jamaica.

ROME Miriam Makeba, the South African folk singer and anti-apartheid activist fondly known as 'Mama Africa', died early Monday in southern Italy, after performing at a concert against organised crime, hospital officials said. She was 76.

The emergency room of the Pineta Grande Clinic, a private facility in Castel Volturno, near Naples, confirmed Italian news reports that the singer had died after being brought there.

The ANSA news agency reported that Makeba apparently suffered a heart attack just at the end of the concert, where she had sung for about 30 minutes to show solidarity for Italian journalist Roberto Saviano, who received death threats after writing a book about the Camorra, the Naples-area crime syndicate.

International icon

The news of Makeba's death caused shock and grief in South Africa.

Arts and Culture Ministry spokesman Sandile Memela described her as an international icon.

"It's a monumental loss, not only to South African society in general, but for humanity," he said.

Makeba first came to international prominence when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa in 1959. In 1960, when she tried to fly home for her mother's funeral, she discovered her passport had been revoked.

Banned records

In 1963, she appeared before the United Nations Special Committee on Apartheid to call for an international boycott on South Africa. The South African government responded by banning her records, including hits like Pata Pata, The Click Song (Qongqothwane in Xhosa), and Malaika.

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

She only returned to her homeland with the crumbling of apartheid in the early 1990s.

"It was like a revival," she said. "My music having been banned for so long, that people still felt the same way about me was too much for me. I just went home and I cried."