Brenda Nokuzola Fassie,affectionately called MaBrrr by her fans died at the age of 39 on May 9, 2004 in hospital after slipping into a coma following reports that revealed that she had taken an overdose of cocaine.
At the age of 16, she left Cape Town for Johannesburg to seek her fortune as a singer. Fassie first joined the vocal group Joy (filling in for one of the members who was on maternity leave)and later became the lead singer for a township music group called Brenda and the Big Dudes. In 1985 she gave gave birth to her son, Bongani and went on to marry Nhlanhla Mbambo in 1989 but divorced in 1991. Around this time she became addicted to cocaine.
Known best for her songs Weekend Special and Too Late for Mama among others, she was dubbed “The Madonna of the Townships” by Time magazine in 2001.
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She later released several albums, including Now Is the Time, Memeza and Nomakanjani. Most of her albums became multi-platinum sellers in South Africa with Memeza being the best-selling album in South Africa in 1998.
Fassie won five South African Music Awards including the Best Female Artist and Song of the Year in 1999, Best-selling Release of the Decade, Best Song of the Decade in 2004, and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. She also won three Kora Awards and was voted 17th in the Top 100 Great South Africa.
Her son Bongani “Bongz” Fassie performed “I’m So Sorry”, a song dedicated to his mother, on the soundtrack to the 2005 Academy Award-winning movie Tsotsi. In March 2006 a life-size bronze sculpture of Fassie by artist Angus Taylor was installed outside Bassline, a music venue in Johannesburg.
