Beldina Odenyo Onassis

Beldina Odenyo Onassis, also known as Heir of the Cursed, was a Kenyan-born Scottish musician, singer, poet and writer.

Background

Onassis was born Beldina Awino Nora Kungu in Kisumu, Kenya on 30 August 1990, before moving with her family to Lockerbie in Scotland when she was a child. She had thirteen siblings. Her obituary in the British newspaper The Times describes her as 'Kenyan-Scottish'.

Career

She developed an early interest in music, and began performing at age eleven. She previously performed under the name Genesee, before adopting the stage name Beldina Odenyo Onassis. She worked mostly in Glasgow and was named one of Scotland’s 30 most inspiring women under 30.
She worked with the National Theatre of Scotland on Lament for Sheku Bayoh and with the all-female songwriting collective Hen Hoose. She worked on several theatre projects and was developing a play shortly before she died, which she said was to be "about our relationship with the dead". Sarah Moorhouse, her biographer for the Dictionary of National Biography, said that "death was a source of sustained fascination" in her work.
A regular performer at Celtic Connections Festival, she won the Danny Kyle award. She performed a sold-out show at Glasgow's Tron Theatre in 2018.
Onassis died by suicide at her home in Paisley on 5 November 2021, at the age of 31.