Queen of Kwaito to Return to Langa
Last night's newspaper billboards and headlines shouted the homecoming of our Queen of Kwaito, the Madonna of the Townships Brenda Fassie. But The Song of the Decade nominee (for Vulindlela) whose album Memeza broke half-a-million sales, will sing no more. Born in Langa in 1964, Fassie died in Johannesburg Sunday after being in a coma for two weeks following an asthma attack. Many suspect complications through substance abuse.
Visited in hospital by well-wishers President Thabo Mbeki and former president Nelson Mandela, the mercurial diva's family kept vigil at her bedside. Suffering probable brain damage and close to death, Fassie was perhaps kept alive more by her fans desire to see her recover than any physical agency. Facing an encore she couldn't take, Fassie died in the city she made her own after being taken in by music producer Koloi Lebona's family at age 16.
Home is, however, where the heart is and Brenda's weekend burial from her home on Makana Square in Langa has been widely welcomed. Although I did not know Fassie or her music, beyond that which I heard on radio and TV, I welcome it too. One cannot visit Langa without taking note of (or having one's attention drawn to) the original homes of its notorious and famous sons and daughters. History runs deep and counts for much. Just as an old man will spend hours detailing the events surrounding the 1960, Phillip Kgosana-led march to Caledon Square from a decrepit electricity switch box outside the Old Flats ("It was here that soldiers from the first Saracen opened fire"), the Fassie family history is dissected when passing their house.
The community spirit binding Langa residents, unlike that of any other part of Cape Town, fires legends. Nobody escapes it or each other. Brenda Fassie may have lived fast and dangerously. She may have offended many of her elders and contemporaries, and she may have chosen to live elsewhere. But Langa, easily able to distinguish the sin from the sinner, will turn out in full to welcome its Prodigal Daughter. Brenda is coming home to stay.
