| Brenda Fassie, the legendary South African | | | | other famous black South Africans. |
| pop singer who sold millions of records | | | | |
| across Africa and around the world, died in a | | | | Five years before Fassie arrived, Soweto |
| Johannesburg hospital on May 9, 2004 after | | | | police opened fire on 10,000 protesting |
| spending 13 days in a coma. The post-mortem | | | | students marching peacefully from Naledi High |
| said her final dose of cocaine was the cause | | | | School to Orlando Stadium. In the events that |
| of death. She was only 39 years old. MaBrrr, | | | | unfolded, 566 people died. The impact of the |
| as she was affectionately nicknamed by her | | | | Soweto Uprising, as it became known, |
| fans, had tried to resolve her severe | | | | reverberated throughout the country and |
| addictions over the years at various | | | | around the world. Soweto became the stage for |
| treatment centers - in fact, more than 30 | | | | violent state repression and the roaring |
| times - but, unfortunately for MaBrrr and her | | | | social and political oven in which Fassie |
| millions of admirers, she never found a truly | | | | forged the direction of her music - by the |
| successful drug rehab program. | | | | mid-'90s, she was the unequivocal voice of |
| | | | black oppression. But she had also formed a |
| Fassie, the youngest of nine kids, was named | | | | drug addiction so strong that it managed to |
| after Brenda Lee, the American singer. Her | | | | resist one treatment program after another. |
| pianist mother let her earn money by singing | | | | Without access to a real drug rehab, Fassie |
| for tourists in the streets. In 1981 at 16, | | | | was unable to break the habit. |
| Fassie left Cape Town to seek her fortune as | | | | |
| a singer in Johannesburg's Soweto district. | | | | In 2001 Time magazine dubbed Fassie "The |
| Soweto, short for "South West Townships", had | | | | Madonna of the Townships" and indeed she was. |
| long been under the grinding heel of South | | | | Fassie managed to combine ground-breaking |
| Africa's white supremacist apartheid policy. | | | | musical success with a personal accessibility |
| Poverty, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, | | | | and human fallibility that drew a fierce |
| illness and crime were rampant, and drug | | | | loyalty and protectiveness from fans. Her |
| rehab facilities as we know them today were | | | | career was studded with record sales and |
| virtually unknown. But there was art, there | | | | awards, but punctuated also by periodic |
| was music, there were night clubs to sing in | | | | scandals, recurring battles with drug |
| and a vibrant culture was being created by | | | | addiction, and lows in her musical career |
| Soweto's people. Nelson Mandela lived there | | | | that saw her written off by the press. |
| for years, as did Bishop Desmond Tutu and | | | | |