Min Shaw

Min Shaw is the sweetheart of Afrikaans song — born Wilhelmina Jacoba in Johannesburg on 26 November 1934, and for three decades one of South Africa's most beloved voices on record and screen. She trained and worked as a schoolteacher, singing in Johannesburg and Benoni restaurants, until winning a talent competition in Margate in 1961 pointed her at a bigger stage. Her first solo single, 'Kleine Nagtegaal' (June 1966), was the success that let her leave the classroom for good.

Stardom arrived hand-in-hand with the movies: 'Jy is my Liefling' was both her signature hit and the theme of the 1968 film of the same name, in which she starred opposite Franz Marx. More films followed — Hoor My Lied (1967), Die Danie Bosman Storie (1969), Lied in My Hart (1970) — securing her place at the centre of the Afrikaans entertainment boom. With Lance James she formed one of the most popular duos in Afrikaans music, with the hit albums Bymekaar (1968) and, fourteen years later, Weer Bymekaar (1982).

Across her career she released more than 70 albums and an estimated 800 songs, spanning light Afrikaans pop, English numbers and — later — the gospel recordings that earned her platinum and double-platinum sales. She won three Sarie awards and multiple gold records. In January 2020 she was inducted as a living legend of the South African Legends Museum, one of only twenty honoured with a bust.