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December 16, 2024

A Harmonious Healer and a Pure Gift Gone Too Soon

By Ndaba Sibanda

A Harmonious Healer and a Pure Gift Gone Too Soon

With her soulful vocal sounds and an acoustic guitar,
she hypnotized, swayed and seized our sore cores,
her harmonies breezed ease into the broken hearts.

I richly recall how her sensational Loliwe raged and rioted
like an anthem in 2011, our staffroom in SA was not spared;
then years later in Angola , my Portuguese colleagues
would confess being her huge fans. Talk of impact.

Yet gone at just 36, Bulelwa Mkutukana,
an award-winning singer and songwriter, whose stage
name was Zahara, embodied a sheer fabulous flair.

Her music lives on. In her words, ‘Nothing really
bothers me. I have been criticized, hurt and labeled
all sorts of things but I continue to stand firm

because I know my purpose
- to heal people through
music. That makes me sleep at night’
.

Sleep well, gifted sister.


Bulelwa Mkutukana (9 November 1987 – 11 December 2023), known by her stage name Zahara



Image by Raidarmax CC BY-SA 3.0

Article © Ndaba Sibanda. All rights reserved.
Published on 2023-12-18
Image(s) are public domain.
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