Brenda Fassie: Madonna of the townships

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brenda Fassie was one of South Africa's biggest pop stars in the late 1980s. The singer’s career nosedived in 1990, but her comeback saw her dubbed the 'Madonna of the townships' by Time magazine.

Yvonne Chaka Chaka, born a year after Brenda, was perhaps the only South African pop star who could rival her popularity.

Twenty years ago, in 2004, Brenda died

Yvonne celebrates Brenda's life with Ben Henderson.

(Photo Brenda Fassie, a South African pop star, performing on stage. Credit :ALEXANDER JOE/AFP via Getty Images.)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:37.0	Hello and welcome to Witness History from the BBC World Service with me
0:45.2	Ben Henderson. Today we're going back to South Africa in 1989. Brenda Fassie is the country's biggest pop star.
0:55.3	Time magazine has called her Madonna of the townships
0:58.6	after the American singer.
1:00.4	Today, she's getting married in a sports stadium and 18,000 people have turned up to watch the show. Brenda didn't ask me, she ordered me to be her bridesmaids and yeah who could have said no she came in a helicopter flying into the
1:25.2	stadium and the helicopter landed there she came out and you can imagine it was like a
1:29.9	concert so everybody came to Brenda Foss's wedding just screaming so it was funny but
1:37.4	amazing. This is Yvonne Chaka Chaka also known as Princess of Africa.
1:43.2	She's been one of South Africa's most popular musicians for three decades.
1:47.6	She was born only a year after Brenda in 1965, and she idolized her growing up.
1:54.0	Brenda had a great impact because here was this young black girl with a golden voice
2:01.0	and so I think every black girl said oh if she can make it I can as well.
2:08.6	Born into poverty in Langer a township in Cape Town
2:12.4	Brenda began singing in a group run by her mother called
2:15.6	Tiny Tots when she was a young child.
2:18.6	Age 16, she moved to Suueto, Ian Johannesburg where Yvonne lived to pursue her dream as a singer.
	...

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