Movies
'Bohemian Rhapsody': Queen movie will rock you
Actor Rami Malek gives an uncanny performance as Freddie Mercury in 'Bohemian Rhapsody', writes Andrea Nagel, who experienced the late legend's star power firsthand in the 1980s
There were Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Robert Plant and all the rest, but many, myself included, would argue that Freddie Mercury was the godliest frontman of all time.
Born this week in 1942 in Stone Town, Zanzibar, as Farrokh Bulsara, he rose to become one of the most revered and versatile singers of all time. He would have been 72 this past Wednesday, a day marked around the world as "Freddie for a Day", with fans celebrating his life by donning a white vest and yellow jacket and sporting his trademark moustache.
The event raises money for the Mercury Phoenix Trust, the Aids charity set up in his name in 1992.
In 1985 my parents took me to watch Queen perform at Sun City. As a kid, I was unaware of the enormous controversy that erupted because of the band's breaking of the UN cultural boycott by playing in apartheid SA.
Queen was blacklisted by the UN until apartheid was dismantled, and they were fined by the British Musicians' Union as well as being lambasted in the press all over the world...
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