Belinda Davids comes home to perform Whitney Houston hit songs

Belinda Davids might have toured the world through her Whitney Houston tribute shows but there is nothing more special to her than performing in front of her home crowd. 

The Greatest Love of All, it is an acclaimed tribute show in which Davids from Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, celebrates Houston through her music hits. With the show, she has wowed audiences from US, UK, Europe, Middle East, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and SA for more than a decade.

Davids, who now lives in Cape Town and has just finished another international show, will have two performances in SA. 

Speaking to Sowetan this week Davids said: “I love coming home specifically because I get so much love here. I always say that I am more recognised when I’m outside of my country, but when I’m home I get a lot of love. It makes me so happy. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but it happens everywhere I go that people sing along to all the songs. But it’s just more when I’m here, I feel like myself when I’m here at home.” 

Davids, who is set to perform at Joburg Theatre on August 24, is proud she has been able to keep the show going for this long. 

“The reason why this show has been going on for so long and I travel the world is because people miss her [Houston], and people still want her to be here. And you see it and you feel it. You know, because this kind of music does not exist so much today. If Whitney [Houston] was still with us and in top form, she would be doing the same thing, giving us something fresh all the time. 

“The show has been going on for almost 13 years. The secret of keeping it going is to add more to the show. When we started the show, we didn’t quite know where the show was going to go. And then the show blew up and we had to swap songs around and we had to make the show bigger by adding dancers. Now we’re at the point where we don’t even need dancers. And that’s another level for me to understand because now I have to carry the show. Our technical team is incredible.” 

After the Johannesburg performance, Davids will be performing in UK, Netherlands and Spain before coming back to SA for the Cape Town performance in December.  

CEO at Joburg City Theatres, Xoliswa Nduneni-Ngema said: “The high demand for tickets for last year’s season was phenomenal. As soon as the shows sold out we were inundated with requests from fans who were asking for a return season. Belinda Davids will be back and we are privileged to host her return to the Joburg Theatre.”