08 December 2021
Charlene Thabisile Mguni
South African Singer and Songwriter Bulelwa Mkutukana popularly known as “Zahara” is allegedly back to her “drinking problems.”
Reports from concerned fans, with a circulating video that is trending on Twitter, Zahara is seen struggling to sing her famous hit song “Ndiza” as she sounds off key and sloppy on the stage, at her recent live show performance.
Zahara became famous in 2011 after signing a record deal with TS records, whose owner T.K Nciza spotted her on the streets of East London performing.
Zahara has produced 5 Albums to date with Loliwe (2011) which went double platinum, Phendula (2013), Country Girl (2015) and it went triple platinum, Mgodi(2017) and her recent album Nqaba Yami which picked on number 1 on iTunes.
Twitter has gone berserk as they suspect Zahara to be under the influence of alcohol, seemingly giving a poor performance on stage.
One of the tweets who commented on the video post said that, “She was so drunk this day at Standerton.”
Zahara has previously suffered from alcohol abuse and she stated that she was recovering from it as it was a dark time for her and her career.
In one of her interviews done on the course of her recovery, she confirmed that she was frustrated and drunk a little to numb the pain until little became more and she got addicted.
Zahara stated that TK Nciza and Sbusiso “Dj Sbu” Leope, the owners of her former record label TS records destroyed her saying they exploited her financially leading to her being depressed and depending on alcohol for “sanity”
For a while, Zahara was allegedly reported bankrupt and on top of that, she had become more and more infamous due to her drunken behaviour.
In 2018, she was reported to have spent the whole December in hospital as she was diagnosed with liver disease that was caused by drinking.
Zahara seems to be creeping back to her old habit, yet over a month ago, she was on the famous podcast with MacG, where she spoke out about the dangers of drinking and its effects and quiting.
“Look, let’s say she needs rehabilitation…how did she complete a whole album sounding like the Zahara we know? Nhe man, she’s just being disrespectful to the people who paid their hard earned money”, commented Manu.
Fans wonder what’s the root cause of her drinking problems now, or rather if it ever stopped.
Above all that, Zahara is a successful leading South African Artist with 17 South African Music Awards(SAMAs) 3 Metro FM Awards, One Nigerian Entertainment Award.
In 2020 she was in the list of the BBC Top 100 females, and this year she was a guest judge on South African Idols