VULINDLELA
ARTIST: Brenda Fassie
HOMETOWN: Langa, Capetown, South Africa
ALBUM: Memeza
RELEASED: April, 1997
LABEL: EMI
FILE UNDER: African Synth Pop/Kwaito
World music is an odd thing. The songs whose titles we struggle to pronounce and lyrics we Google to translate are often the “Born to Run” of their home nations. The artists themselves – booked in that small “eclectic” club as they pass through your town – often jam pack a (cricket/rugby/soccer) stadium on native grounds. Nowhere is this more true than with Brenda Fassie – The Madonna of the Townships.
There was that quick moment in the 80’s when we cruised campus in our Mandela tees and, at the urging of Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel, dabbled in actual South African music – a sampling of Johnny Clegg or, for the adventurous, a dive into the most influential (and essential) comp of the day, “The Indestructible Beat of Soweto.” Yet few stateside made it all the way to Brenda Fassie, the undeniable Queen of African Pop.
Born to a musical family in the Capetown township of Langa and named for Brenda Lee, Fassie (known to fans as “Mabrrr”) was a dancefloor-filing, unstoppable hit machine from the mid-80s through the late 90’s, marrying songs of socio-political protest to the hip-hop inspired kwaito beats that burst from South African radios at the height of Apartheid unrest. Despite a tragic personal life, marred by severe cocaine addiction (Fassie did nearly 30 tours of rehab and in 1995 was found unconscious in a hotel room next to her dead lover) she remained a defiant, potent, badass voice for change...her style and bravado adored and imitated by millions.
Sung in her native Zulu, Fassie’s biggest single - “Vulindlela” – was voted South Africa’s Song of the Decade and would become a rallying cry for the ANC’s 1999 presidential campaign – which ended with the election Mandela’s successor, Thabo Mbeki. But despite the political ties, the song is a very simple story, of a proud mother walking her son down the wedding aisle:
Vulindlela wemamgobhozi (open the gates miss gossip) He unyanaa wam helele uyaashada namhlanje (my baby boy is getting married today)
In April of 2004, a massive drug overdose left Brenda Fassie in a coma. She was visited in the hospital by Nelson & Winnie Mandela as well as Thabo Mbeki, days before her death on May 9th.
I actually visited Brenda’s birthplace - the Langa Township - in late 2014. This is a picture I took there...
