Inside Afro-pop star Zahara’s tragic battle with alcoholism as she dies aged 35 after being ‘broken’ by liver failure
POP singer Zahara died at the age of 35 after suffering with liver problems from years of alcohol abuse.
The self-taught Afro-pop artist, who featured on the BBC's 100 Women list, died at a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa on Monday.
Zahara, whose real name is Bulelwa Mkutukana, first found fame in 2011 with album Loliwe - with it winning album of the year at the South African Music awards.
She even performed one of the album's songs for Nelson Mandela in 2013 before his death.
The 35-year-old artist was a self-taught guitarist who won and made it onto the BBC's list of influential women in 2020.
She began her career busking and said in an interview: "I had dreams – that one day I would be somebody."
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And the singer went on to win countless awards throughout her career, including Best Female Artist and Album of the Year at the South African Music Awards.
Zahara sung in English as well as Xhosa, her native language, and said her music was a reflection of who she was.
In an she said: "If you want to know mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally where I’m at, where I’m centred, go get my albums."
The last music she made was a single released just weeks before her death in November.
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Zahara sadly battled alcoholism and struggled with her mental health for years.
She was hospitalised in South Africa last month with liver problems before her death on Monday.
Millions of the singers fans have been left reeling after her death.
During an interview this year she opened up about her struggles with depression.
She said: "People go through depression whether I know it or don’t know it.
"There’s no way I did not go through depression.
"There’s no way that I did not feel what you guys were saying to me, the daggers that you were pointing at me and digging me, that I did feel no pain."
Zahara also told that she drank as a way to cope with the death of her brother.
"I used to drink for myself to be happy, but now I saw I was drinking to sleep because of my brother’s death and what the company was doing to me.
"I couldn’t talk to nobody because I was scared of everything," she said.
Her younger brother, Mbuyiseli Mkutukana, was murdered in 2014.
Then tragically in 2021, her older sister Nomonde Mkutukana died in a car accident.
Nomonde had said in a : "If Zahara continues drinking, she is going to die.
"We are making sure that there is always someone around her to monitor her so that she doesn't start drinking again."
She said that when Zahara was told she had to stop drinking or she could die, it "broke her".
She added: "We never stopped praying for her. It is prayer that gave us hope that she was going to be okay.
"December was a tough month for us, but the doctors guaranteed that, if she stopped drinking, her liver might recover. We all had to come back to Joburg to give Zahara emotional and physical support."
South Africa's Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa announced her death on Monday and said the government had been helping the family for "some time now".
He said: "I am very saddened by the passing of Zahara.
"My deepest condolences to the Mkutukana family and the South African music industry.
"Government has been with the family for some time now. Zahara and her guitar made an incredible and lasting impact in South African music."
Zahara was also involved in activism alongside her music, as she campaigned for an end to violence against women in South Africa.
She described the violence as a "pandemic" in the country after a man attacked her with pepper spray in his car.
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She told the BBC: "Men feel like they are entitled to women, like women are theirs.
"Men in South Africa, all they care about is them."
