Brenda Fassie

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Life-size Brenda Fassie bronze sculpture by Angus Taylor in Johannesburg

Brenda Fassie (born November 3, 1964 in Cape Town , † May 9, 2004 in Johannesburg ) was a South African pop singer who was considered a voice of the oppressed black majority in the country during apartheid .

Life

She was born in Langa , the oldest township in Cape Town , as the youngest of nine siblings. Her father died when she was two years old. With the help of her mother, a pianist, she started earning money at an early age by singing for tourists.

Discovered by Koloi Lebona at the end of 1979 , she left Cape Town in 1981 at the age of 16 and went to Soweto , the largest township in Johannesburg. There she worked again as a singer, first for the group Joy , then for Blondie and Papa . She later became the singer and front woman of the group Brenda and the Big Dudes . With these bands she became increasingly popular in southern Africa. Her greatest success worldwide was probably the solo piece Weekend Special (recorded in 1983), which made it into the British charts in 1986 .

Fassie had a son, Bongani (* 1985), with one of her bandmates from the Big Dudes . She was married to ex-convict Nhlanhla Mbambo from 1989 to 1991. It was during this time that she probably became addicted to cocaine . Her bisexuality , her drug addiction, the frequent absence from agreed appearances and concerts, and an otherwise very conspicuous lifestyle have seriously damaged her reputation and career.

The low point of this decline was an incident in 1995 in which she and her partner Poppie Sihlahla took a cocaine overdose . Sihlahla died in the hospital, Fassie survived and after this shock tried to get her life under control again. Although she got her career back on track, she continued to have problems with drugs. She has been on withdrawal therapy more than 30 times in her life .

Since 1996 she has released a new solo album almost every year and again celebrated great success. Her biggest comeback album is Memeza , released in 1998 . It was South Africa's best-selling album that year. Almost all of their albums have achieved multiple South African platinum status . In 1999 she received the Kora All African Music Awards in the Best Artist category .

In 2001, the American Time Magazine published a three-page report on Brenda Fassie, calling her "The Madonna of the Townships" and thus making her known to a larger audience beyond the borders of Africa. It owes its popularity in South Africa to the song lyrics, which often describe the life of the black population in the townships, and to their ties to the black population. Even after her musical breakthrough, she continued to live in Soweto and often continued to perform in various townships in the country, often for free.

On the morning of April 26, 2004, Brenda collapsed at her home in Buccleuch (a suburb of Sandton , Johannesburg) and fell into a coma . She was taken to Sunninghill Hospital in Johannesburg. Your heart and lung functions collapsed, and she suffered as a result of lack of oxygen a brain damage , who had the coma result. Brenda Fassie passed away 13 days after this incident on May 9, 2004 at the age of 39 without regaining consciousness after the life support machines were turned off. The autopsy report, released only months after her death, showed that she died of a cocaine overdose.

According to a report by the South African Sunday Times and two managers from their record company, the autopsy report also showed that Fassie was HIV- positive. Their manager, Peter Snyman, always denied these reports, but he also claimed that the fatal cocaine overdose was rat poisonous and that it was murder. The family agreed to publish the autopsy report in order to protect Brenda Fassie's reputation posthumously .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fassie and Kuti take the prize. bbc.co.uk (English), accessed April 2, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Fassie, Brenda
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African pop singer
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd November 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Cape Town
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 2004
Place of death Johannesburg