No one has replaced the Nigerian star who died on Valentine's Day

There has not been another Goldie. No woman or man alive in Nigeria has replicated or taken elements from Goldie to create a new drag queen with talent.

Today marks the 4th year anniversary Goldie Harvey passed away after returning from the 55 Grammy Awards. The singer who was signed to Kennis Music took ill and died.

Doctor’s reports say the singer suffered from deep vein thrombosis, resulting from pulmonary embolism — a sudden blockage of a lung artery as a result of a 12-hour flight from the US to Lagos.

But five years after her death, there has been no one like Goldie, who could incorporate her eccentric lifestyle, good music and flamboyant fashion sense into her act.

Goldie Harvey was special. She was so special that she could stood out first, not because of her music, but because of what she brought to the art via other elements of her brand.

Goldie was a daring and creative personality who embraced her style and always stood out on red carpets and award shows. When she took off for the Big Brother Africa ‘Star Game’ house, Nigerians were treated to her life as it unfolded on the screens.

Susan Oluwabimpe "Goldie" Filani was born in Lagos. She graduated from the University of Sunderland in 2007 with a BA in Business Management. She was married to Andrew Harvey, an engineer based in Malaysia, in 2005, though this fact was not widely known before she died.

Harvey had won several African music awards including a Top Naija Music Award. She appeared on Big Brother Africa in 2012 which was her first TV appearance. She and Kenyan rapper Prezzo, another BBA housemate, appeared to have a close relationship on the show.

Her bold and colourful videos, rambunctious personality and animated performances were just a few of the unique traits that propelled her to the apex of her career and cemented her position as a true pop-diva. Goldie exuded a personality that was both brazen, eccentric, and extraordinary. No one had a brush with Goldie, that didn’t recall it for years to come.

After returning home to Nigeria from the 2013 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California, she complained of a headache and was rushed to hospital where she was later pronounced dead.

Although there were rumors that she may have used drugs that caused her death, her husband denied that possibility, an autopsy, conducted by the Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, that the Nigerian pop star died of ‘hypertensive heart disease,’ which triggered an “intracerebellar hemorrhage."

Goldie, 29 years old at the time of her death, was laid to rest at the Vaults and Gardens, Ikoyi, Lagos. She was buried on the 25 February 2013 at the Vaults and Gardens Cemetery, Ikoyi, Lagos.

After her death, her properties were auctioned, and her costumes were donated to the Theatre Arts Department of the University of Lagos Akoka, while some of her books were given to the Technology Department of the Yaba College of Technology.

Generally, in Nigeria, when a star dies, people will seldom remember you. The industry and culture will move on, and your name will continue to be spoken in small pockets of people, but it will slowly be eroded from our minds, via work and the vagaries of existence.

As for your music, it will be picked apart for substance, and if any is found, it will be replicated and used in generating value. But that’s only if they are worth anything in terms of content. If they aren’t, then the lack of any good material will simply hasten the departure of people from your name.

But for Goldie, it is different.

She still stands as the last of her kind, and rightfully so.

It’s been 4 years since her passing, and no one can walk in Goldie’s shoes. No one has even dared, because such talent is not a construct of a good PR and branding team. It came from within, and it was rooted deep inside her; that place in all of us that anchors our essence.