On 9 May South Africans and the world alike will mourn exactly a decade since we lost the legendary entertainer. This year also marks the year she would’ve turned 50 so the timing is absolutely perfect for the release of a new book titled I’m Not Your Weekend Special: Portraits on the Life+Style & Politics of Brenda Fassie edited by Bongani Madondo.
The book is a collection of contributions from different people, including rapper and son, Bongani Fassie, on their experience of the late singer as a musician, as a woman, as a social and political commentator through her music, as a mother and a lover. Hugh Masekela passionately opens the book with his foreward, which begins: “Like Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong and Mirim Makeba, Brenda’s music will always be in our lives. We will smile when we think of her. South Africa will never be the same without her.”
Going on sale in April, the book will retail for R240 and we reckon it’s definitely worth the read in terms of brushing up on our musical heritage, but more importantly to relive the legacy that is the incomparable Brenda Fassie.