Rest In Peace Mama Africa

That night on the Tyne's south bank, she transcended ill health and bewitched those of us huddled into the temporary tent squeezed between Sage and Baltic.

Her huge voice and personality in tact, she radiated an understated magnificence, humility disguising her mammoth significance, not just her role in popularising African music, but the one she also played in the history of her country.

As a South African anti-apartheid campaigner, she was exiled from her homeland for three decades. The regime revoked her passport while touring overseas, preventing her from returning for her mother's funeral.

She rose from a childhood in a poor suburb of Johannesburg to become an international superstar (she even appeared with Marilyn Monroe at JFK's birthday celebrations). But more than just a singer, she was a cultural icon who became a figurehead for her nation's struggle, giving speeches to the UN committee on apartheid.

Perhaps most of all, she grasped and embodied the power of music to embolden and inspire.

She appreciated and fostered music's capacity to give people something to cling onto.

This was recognised yesterday by no less a figure than Nelson Mandela, who led the tributes.

"She was a mother to our struggle," he said. "Her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in us."

After hearing of her death after a show in Italy, I recalled feeling that sense of hope too, on a chilly September night in Gateshead. Rest in peace.