Madeegha Anders
 
Thursday 21 July
 
Madeegha Anders is known by many as a songstress, performer, mother, and more recently as a grandmother! Today on Afternoon Express we prepare for Grandparents Day this Sunday.
 
Madeegha thinks back on how Mandela and his legacy shaped her journey. “Back before he was released and was free – we got our freedom, so say – we had to actually sing ‘backdoor’,” she explains. “We called it ‘backdoor’ because we weren’t allowed on open stages, as non-white people.”
 
The 1994 general elections, in which Mandela became the first democratically elected president, changed many things, including show business. Madeegha and other performers finally had the freedom to perform on stages without having to worry about the police or possible raids.
 
“Also not just for me, but now for my kids and their kids, everyone else, it just makes it so much easier and so much nicer,” she says.
 
According to Madeegha, her attitude towards being a grandmother is more relaxed than her attitude towards being a mother. “When you’re raising your own kids, you have that stress of ‘I’ve got to get food on the table. I’ve got to do this; I’ve got to do that.’ You don’t have that when you have grandchildren, you can just relax.”
 
Madeegha’s children joke with her that their children can get away with anything. But her thoughts are, “Do what you want, it’s fine, I can clean it up later!”
 
Some of her favourite memories with her own grandmother were made in the kitchen, and she is carrying on the tradition with her grandbabies. “They always ask me to bake them things like chocolate chip cookies,” she says.
 
Since discovering a growth on her thyroid gland, Madeegha has had to scale down in terms of what she sings. “It’s put me in this scary space for a while,” she admits.
 
While she waits for her surgery, she has decided to accept things for what they are. “I’m going to do what I have to do, and what I love doing… I had to go back and refocus on what is comfortable for me, and what I know, and what the audience will like,” says Madeegha.
 
Tune in to hear Madeegha’s soulful rendition of ‘Jesse’ by Roberta Flack, a song that she performed as a teenager in Swaziland way back in 1979.
 
Find Madeegha on social media:
@madeeghaanders / Madeegha Anders Productions