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Fans bid farewell to Brenda
22/05/2004 11:10 - (SA)
Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki joined thousands of fans on Saturday to bid a last farewell to pop diva Brenda Fassie at funeral services held in the Langa township where she was born.
Fassie, known as "Madonna of the Townships" died on May 9 in a Johannesburg hospital, two weeks after an asthma attack caused cardiac arrest and left her in a coma. She was 39.
Four pallbearers dressed in white suits carried Fassie's coffin into a stadium in Langa at the opening of the funeral as a choir sang hymns.
Sandile Luthuli, 20, said he had driven from Durban to come to the funeral of the woman who rose from township poverty to become an international star.
"What was special about Brenda was that she sang in all of South Africa's languages. Her music always had a message," he said.
A Xhosa, Fassie was equally famous for her piercing voice as she was for her rebelliousness that provided tabloid fodder, admitting publicly to drug abuse and numerous love affairs with both sexes.
Fassie's breakthrough came in 1983 with the song "Weekend Special" about being a married man's part-time girlfriend, which topped the charts and received wide international play. She was only 19.
She also gave voice to the aspirations of black South Africans under apartheid, with songs such as "Black President", an hymn to Nelson Mandela who was serving out a jail sentence for his opposition to the white regime on Robben Island.
'She supported us during apartheid'
"All South Africans can be proud of Brenda Fassie because she supported us during the apartheid years in our struggle. Those were difficult times and she was always there for us, inspiring us with her music," said Tiooy Lewis, 50.
"Brenda worked her way up and she opened the door to success for many other people from Langa. She was very down to earth. She bought her mother a beautiful house and supported her family," said Fagmieda Young, 60, a woman from Langa, who said she knew Fassie as a young girl.
Mbeki's state of the nation address on Friday paid homage to Fassie, saying that "while she was among us, we did not fully appreciate how much her talent served to enrich our lives."
Despite fighting a debilitating drug addiction and the death of her lesbian lover in the mid-1990s, Fassie made a comeback in 1998, winning several South African and African music awards.
Fassie was hospitalised on April 26 after suffering from cardiac arrest that left her in a coma, brain-damaged and breathing with the help of a respirator.
Funeral services were due to be held a week ago but were postponed to allow Mbeki and other senior officials who were in Zurich to push for South Africa's bid to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup to attend.
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