Brenda Nokuzela Fassie, Musician, composer

Reading through her list of albums one can catch themselves singing the songs one after another from. Brenda Fassie’s music brings a nostalgic feeling to all who heard her music then and even now. Her music was a part of us. Most Malawians sang along to the tunes even if they were in a foreign language. That is why she is no doubt a legendary musician worth celebrating on the African continent. With information sourced from Time.com, BBC.com, and allmusic.com. CHEU MITA put together this biography of the woman fondly called ‘The Madonna of the townships’.

Born 3 November 1964, Brenda Fassie has been described as an anti-apartheid South African Afropop singer. Her bold stage antics earned a reputation for “outrageousness”. Affectionately called Mabrr by her fans, she was sometimes described as the “Queen of African Pop”.

Fassie’s vocation seemed destined from the start. Born in Langa in the Cape Flats, she was named after US country singer Brenda Lee, and began to perform at 55-years-old.

Her father died when she was two, and with the help of her mother, a pianist, she started earning money by singing for tourists.

Her talent was spotted by music producer Koloi Lebona who heard her sing, in her mid-teens and her journey to stardom began in the city of Johannesburg.

“There was something special about her voice,” Mr Lebona told South African news agency, Sapa.

“It was different to anything I had heard until then and was very mature for a 16-year-old. I knew it was the voice of the future.”

Fassie shot to fame in the early 1980s with the best-selling bubble-gum pop hit, Weekend Special, as Brenda and the Big Dudes. It became the fastest selling record of the time and later moved into the international charts.

In the late 1980s, Fassie teamed up with record producer Sello “Chicco” Twala to launch Too Late for Mama – a multi-platinum seller. But then, Fassie found cocaine – and her fresh-faced success began to sour.

She had a son, Bongani, in 1985 by a fellow Big Dudes musician. She married Nhlanhla Mbambo in 1989 but divorced in 1991. Around this time she became addicted to cocaine and her career suffered.

A failed marriage, concert no-shows and a slide into debt followed.

In 1995, Fassie hit rock bottom. She was found in a hotel room, in a drug-induced haze – lying next to the body of her lesbian lover, Poppie Sihlahla, who had died of an apparent drug overdose.

“I’d been shouting and shouting and no one wanted to hear me “

Brenda Fassie on her album Memeza (‘Shout’)

Fassie booked into a drug rehabilitation centre.

In 1997, Fassie reunited with Twala to record Memeza (Shout). She later said this album best epitomised her life.

“Memeza – it means ‘Scream’, ‘Shout’,” she said in 1999.

“I’d been shouting and shouting and no-one wanted to hear me. When I sing this song, I want to cry.”

But, she said, the bad times were past.

“This is the beginning for me,” she said.

It was a new start that confounded her critics. Memeza was South Africa’s best-selling album of 1998 – and that same year, Fassie scooped the Kora Award for best female artist.

The best-selling wedding song Vulindlela, from the album, was used by the ruling African National Congress in its 1999 election campaign.

A string of best-selling albums followed, and for the next four consecutive years Fassie won a South African Music Award.

As Leslie Sedibe, EMI Music lawyer stated when she died: “Brenda occupied a special place in the minds and hearts of many people around the world. Indeed, a hero has fallen.”

Since her death in April 2004 from an over dose drug Fassie has been recognised in different ways.

She was voted 17th in the Top 100 Great South Africans. Her son Bongani ‘Bongz’ Fassie performed on the soundtrack to the 2005 Academy Award-winning movie Tsotsi. He dedicated his song I’m So Sorry to his mother.

In March 2006 a life-size bronze sculpture of Fassie by artist Angus Taylor was installed outside Bassline, a music venue in Johannesburg.

During her time Fassie has collaborated with Papa Wemba, Mandoza’s album Tornado (2002), Miriam Makeba’s album Sangoma (1988), and Harry Belafonte’s anti-apartheid album Paradise in Gazankulu (1988). She sang for the soundtrack for Yizo, Yizo (2004).