NKULULEKO Habedi was born on October 17 1977 at Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, where his mother Pearl Habedi, lived until 1978.

Habedi, 38, who was popularly known as Flabba, was allegedly stabbed to death by his girlfriend allegedly following a quarrel at his Alexandra, Johannesburg, home on Monday.

His girlfriend, Sindisiwe Manqele, 26, appeared briefly in the Alexandra Magistrate's Court on Wednesday.

Habedi spent some of his childhood in Orlando, Soweto, and later moved to Alexandra to live with his parents. He had two brothers, with only one surviving after the eldest died in 1994.

Habedi gave himself the stage name Flabba after he heard his grandmother utter the word, flabbergasted, when he was a small boy. Later, when he sussed out the meaning, he decided to have it as a name to go by in his his daily life.

Before that he was known as Hound, a name he used while he was part of a duo, together with Skwatta Kamp member Nish. The two attended John Orr Technical High School.

Skwatta Kamp was a collective of different small hip-hop groups, founded in the early nineties Jozi.

Its core members were Slick, Shugasmakx, Nish, Flabba, Infa, Bozza and Nemza. The group has constantly been compared to US hip-hop group Wu Tang Clan, because of its large number of members, as the American group had nine members.

The group released their debut album, Skwatta Kampain, in 2001, which had the hit The Rest Shut the F*** Up, that gave the then small hip-hop industry a rude awakening. The song stayed on the number one spot on YFM's daily countdown Jamming 6@6 for a long time.

It was in that song that Flabba cemented his place in the hearts of ardent hip-hop fans with his aggressive rhymes that were punctuated by bravado.

The group was propelled to big-time industry players in 2002 through their follow-up album Khut En Joyn, which won them the Best Rap Album at the SA Music Awards. Flabba won the same award in 2007 as a solo artist for his only solo album, Nkuli vs Flabba. He recently released three music singles and had begun performing again.

Flabba was a true son of hip-hop. He died after a weekend of performances and, coincidentally, on the same day US rapper Notorious BIG died in 1997.

In another coincidence, Flabba's death received the same reaction as that of Ol' Dirty Bastard, also known as ODB, a member of Wu Tang Clan, who died of an overdose in 2004. Both were part of big groups that were influential in the hip-hop scene. Like ODB, Flabba was seen as the most outrageous in the group.

Habedi leaves behind two children, a daughter Lesego and a son Tshegofatso. He will be buried in Alexandra on Sunday.