The legendary South African singer Brenda Fassie died 12 years ago today, when she was just 39 years old. Brenda was born in Cape Town and was one of nine siblings. She started singing as a child, in the street, for tourists visiting the city. At 16, she joined a township music band “Brenda And The Big Dudes”. She left the band a few years later to pursue a solo career and achieved musical success in the last years of the apartheid - she's often referred to as the "Black Madonna". Brenda Fassie