6 |^15 AUGUST^2019 http://www.drum.co.zaI
T’S been a year since his passing and
she’s still picking up the pieces of her
broken heart. When hip-hop megastar
ProKid passed away last August, Man-
disa Mbanjwa was shattered.
Not only did she watch the man she
had loved for 13 years take his last
breath, she also became the talk of the
town when the circumstances around
ProKid’s death became tabloid fodder.
There were reports he’d died after a
drug and booze binge. Another headline
screamed the rapper died in the arms of
his side-chick.
Mandisa is tired of all the talk and
wants to set the record straight. She’s
pouring out her heart in an exclusive in-
terview.
“I was not a nyatsi but his queen,” she
tells DRUM.
She’s accompanied by her friend Lola
Mapanya when we meet her at a restau-rant in Newtown Junction in Joburg.
Mandisa, a sales and marketing consult-
ant, first dated Pro 14 years ago, but their
romance was short-lived. In 2017 their
paths crossed again and the two fell head
over heels in love.
She was with Pro, real name Linda
Mkhize, when he passed away in the
three-bedroom Joburg flat they shared
with Lola, she admits. But she denies be-
ing his mistress.
“I don’t like the fact that I’m still seen
as that girl who dated a married man.”
Pro’s father, Zwelakhe Kheswa, has ac-
companied Mandisa and Lola.
He says Pro shared a daughter with
Ayanda Dhlamini but had never tied the
knot.
“ProKid was never married,” Zwelakhe
(62) says. “I was the one who went to pay
damages for his daughter. We didn’t pay
any lobola for anyone.”Mandisa was banned from her lover’s
funeral out of respect for Ayanda, and
she still feels robbed of the opportunity
to pay her last respects to her beloved.
“I was bitter because I didn’t do any-
thing wrong. I only wanted to see him
off.”
Recently she visited the love of her life
at Westpark Cemetery, where he was laid
to rest, for the first time.
She’s forgiven Pro’s family, who per-
formed a cleansing ceremony after his
father reached out to her.
Zwelakhe, devastated by his son’s pass-
ing, arranged to meet Mandisa after the
funeral. “I had to find closure,” he says.
“I needed to make it possible for my
son to rest in peace.”
Now Zwelakhe considers Mandisa part
of the Mkhize family. “We’re bound for
life because my son took his last breath
at her house.”‘I MISS HIM EVERY DAY’
A year after ProKid’s untimely death, Mandisa Mbanjwa opens up about
the rapper’s last moments and how his father has helped her heal
BY KHOSI BIYELA PICTURES: ONGKOPOTSE KOLOTI