OPINION | Mshoza should’ve been given her flowers while she was still alive

I'm about to go “angry black woman” on y'all but this is necessary, especially after all the fake messages of “appreciation” in tributes to late kwaito star Nomasonto "Mshoza" Maswanganyi who died on Thursday morning.

The 37-year-old musician died due to complications related to diabetes. She first revealed that she was diabetic in 2014 when she was hospitalised after a health scare.

Mshoza's death came as a shock to many, especially for her true, die-hard fans. 

However, what I don't understand is the clear “unreal” love and adoration for her, which makes me wonder whether she knew she was this loved by Mzansi.

South Africans have a tendency of giving celebs their flowers when they die and not when they're still alive. Like for instance, two days ago, I bet Mshoza was the last thing on many people's minds, but as soon as she died people rushed to social media to proclaim their “love” for her and how “talented” she was.

Why give her flowers she can hardly even smell? Is it a thing for us to only love and appreciate movers and shakers when they're gone?

There's also this thing we like doing as a nation of focusing on the “newer and fresher” talent and then chucking out the “old” ones because they aren't that relevant or have started to “bore” us, but why can't we embrace the old and the new?

Someone like Mshoza, who was one of the pioneers of female kwaito and hip-hop rappers, shouldn't have been chucked away by Mzansi like that.

She used to call herself “The Godmother” for a reason - because she knew how much of an influence she had on a culture that helped inspire the likes of Gigi Lamayne, who paid an emotional tribute to her friend and mentor in an interview with TshisaLIVE.

During the interview, Gigi expressed how Mshoza played a huge role in the music industry as one of the first female pioneers of kwaito and hip-hop. She also revealed how the late veteran valued the narrative of women supporting one another.   

“She was somebody I would confide in a lot, obviously when I came into the scene, and she played a huge part in who I am musically. I think she was one of the real pioneers of women in kwaito and hip-hop who were doing something very unapologetically, such as to put women on ... to give women a voice.”

Mshoza was a ground breaker, a pioneer of a movement that allows rappers like Gigi to be unapologetic in their music, but I don't believe Mzansi gave “The Godmother” enough praise for that. Instead, people rather focused on her first bleaching her skin years ago due to what she claimed was pigmentation issues during her second pregnancy.

While it was her choice to lighten her skin, Mshoza received an incredible amount of backlash and was accused of not being proud of her dark skin. Mshoza even faced the “cancel” squad. Wanting to “cancel” someone because of their looks was a bit drastic, especially because it didn't alter her talent in any way.  

She was still the same Mshoza, just a little lighter.

Unfortunately, Mshoza's love for skin lightening and plastic surgery saw her hog headlines for all the wrong reasons, which made it difficult for her to push her music. 

Maybe had we not focused on her skin-lightening procedures and showered her with more appreciation, she would've been more open and her death wouldn't have come as a shock to us.

As much as she tried to come back into the music scene, it wasn't enough ... so now that she's gone, we're only left with a lesson we need to learn, which is to accept whatever it is that our faves choose to do. After all, they're only human too.

Speaking to Sowetan, her manager of 11 years Thanduxolo Jindela, said Mshoza was rushed to 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 Mshoza that everyone loves and knows. Then there is Nomasonto and she didn’t like such things to be known.”

Maybe there's a reason Mshoza chose to keep things private: because she didn't realise the amount of love and support she had from Mzansi.

Let's stop this “cancel culture”, South Africans, because the flowers ya'll are giving Mshoza now are pointless!