53 Years Old
The brightest star on the South African music scene is our very own Platinum princess, Juanita du Plessis. She has long been crowned as our country's top African female artist and she is not going to relinquish her crown anytime soon. Juanita's illustrious career kicked off in 1998 with her debut album "Juanita". In the same year she won several awards and it was already clear then that Juanita's songs work! After many prayers and waiting, her second album "Ek en jy" appears, Ska-Rumba was the bonus track. A success story with many milestones is being written. A bunch of brilliant, successful albums see the light and in 2003 Juanita becomes the first Afrikaans singer to reach the no. 1 position on RSG's official Top 20 hit parade and stay at the top for three weeks in a row! (The hit parade includes best sellers in SA - local and international albums). In the next five years, the girl from Suidwes' life changes drastically. In the meantime, the Du Plessis family left their native Namibia and Gobabis (their hometown for 5 years - at that time) behind and settled in Pretoria. More albums see the light and Juanita once again rewrites the record books when her overall sales figure in 2010 reaches the 1.6 million mark. Her second Gospel album, "Vlieg Hoog" (2007), was named the Top Afrikaans Gospel seller of all time. In 2012, Juanita achieved a milestone that she could never have imagined for herself. She becomes the first artist in African history to sell 2,000,000 albums in South Africa. Her sales are currently over 2.5 million. Juanita du Plessis' career speaks of illustrious achievements, precious milestones, humility and dedication, and the awards to her credit surpass those of most artists in South Africa.
Windhoek, Namibia on 26th April 1972
