On Thursday, the sad news of iconic kwaito star, Nomasonto 'Mshoza' Maswanganyi's passing left South Africans heartbroken.
According to reports, the 37-year-old passed away on Thursday morning in a hospital in Springs, Gauteng. Speaking to Sowetan, Mshoza's manager Thanduxolo Jindela revealed that the musician had been rushed to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon.
“She had been living with diabetes for a long time and she was treating it,” Jindela said.
“We were obviously keeping it out of the media that she was hospitalised yesterday [Wednesday]. Remember, there is [the] Mshoza that everyone loves and knows, then there is Nomasonto; she didn’t like such things to be known.”
Her rise to stardom
Mshoza was born on 7 January 1983 at the Meadowlands Clinic in Soweto. She was raised by her grandparents and only started living with her mother at the age of 19 after her grandmother passed away.
She started performing from the age of 10 when she was the lead for her school play, Sarafina. Between 1995 and 1996, she became the lead singer of a choir she had joined. Two years after that, she became a dancer for kwaito group, Chiskop.
She then went on to sign with Bull Dawgs records as an artist. That's when she released her debut album Bull Dawgs First Lady in 2002.
Mshoza was married twice. Her first marriage was in 2007 with business tycoon, Jacob Mnisi – who she had her two children with. The couple’s marriage ended in 2011.
In 2017, Mshoza tied the knot again, this time to Thuthukani Mvula. However, their marriage did not last and the following year, the pair split.
Motherhood
Mshoza is survived by two children: a daughter, (Pride Mnisi, aged 11) and son, (Junior Mnisi, aged 9).
In an interview with Move!, Mshoza revealed that her daughter wanted to become a singer like her but she wasn’t keen on the idea.
“This industry is not for the faint-hearted. She must just focus on education and have a normal life. Maybe even go to Harvard University overseas,” she told the publication.
Mshoza loved her children. “When it comes to our children we really do our best for them," she said in the same interview.
In his interview with Sowetan, Jindela mentioned that Mshoza was very protective over her children. He also said that one thing people didn't know about Mshoza is that she was generous in a lot ways.
“A side of Mshoza that people didn’t know is that she was always trying to teach us life lessons. Everything that she had, she [shared] with me and others. I used to say to her that her weakness is that she likes to share, even if it’s the last of her."
