Creativity Quote by Miriam Makeba

Makeba frames fame less as a spotlight than as a tribunal. The verb choices do the heavy lifting: “damned and praised” isn’t just audience feedback, it’s moral judgment, the kind that can sanctify or exile an artist in real time. She stacks pairs of opposites - praised/damned, encouraged/discouraged - to show how quickly public affection flips, and how performance turns into a referendum on the self. It’s a musician describing the emotional whiplash of the stage, but it’s also a political exile describing the volatility of public legitimacy.

The line “those who listen to you” quietly expands the audience beyond the concert hall. Listening implies intimacy and attention; applauding implies spectacle and approval. Makeba distinguishes the people who actually receive the message from the people who show up to reward it. That split matters for someone whose career was inseparable from activism: she didn’t just want claps, she needed witnesses. In apartheid South Africa and across international stages, her voice carried more than melody; it carried testimony. Being “damned” could mean censorship, blacklisting, or propaganda campaigns. Being “praised” could mean being packaged safely, stripped of threat.

Her final move is disarmingly direct: “those people are very important.” Not “my fans,” not “the public,” but “those who listen.” It’s respect without romanticizing, an acknowledgment that the crowd isn’t background noise - it’s a force that can sustain you, distort you, or demand a version of you that costs.