Gospel legend Dr Rebecca Malope on how she overcame a childhood of abuse

One often cannot think "Rebecca Malope" and not have the words 'positive', 'energy' and 'happiness' come across your mind. 

Not many know that this South African music icon has had to overcome tremendous odds in her life from childhood to get to where she is today: “I come from a family where alcohol and abuse was our daily bread. My father was very abusive towards my mother and us as children. He didn’t live with us and each time he would come home, he would…you know these violent fathers that will beat on your Mom and leave her to die!”

When you see how energised Malope's performance are, it's hard to imagine her having had difficulty with something many take for granted - walking.

“My mother told me when that when she was about seven months pregnant, the violence started, my father beat her up so badly that she went to the hospital and her stomach was so blue and the doctors were rushed to take me out at seven months because now, I could die as well. I was unfortunately affected by the beatings and my muscles were very tight then - they call it tetanus, then I had to be put into the incubator for 6 months but I didn’t recover very well and they had to discharge me after six months. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything like other children - I was just like a cabbage sitting there, lying there until the age of seven. That’s when I started taking my first steps and then at the age of eight, I was running.”

Watch: the gospel icon herself talking about meeting two other icons - the late pop sensation Brenda Fassie and South Africa's first democratically elected President Nelson Mandela