9-time Grammy winner, Natalie Cole, dies at 65

Natalie Cole, an American songster and nine-time Grammy award winner, is dead.

The daughter of legendary crooner, Nat King Cole, who was just 8-years-old when her father recorded his first album in Spanish, died at 65.

She was reported to have died on the last day of 2015, after cancelling performances meant for the same day due to an illness.

Robert Yancy, her son and his sisters, Timolin and Casey Cole in a statement on Friday said she faced death with dignity, strength and honour.

“Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived… with dignity, strength and honour. Our beloved mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain unforgettable in our hearts forever,” the statement read.

Cole’s father always loved to see his daughter follow in his footsteps, but he did not live long enough to see that, dying of cancer in 1965 at age 45.

Ten years later, Natalie won the first of her nine career Grammy Awards as best new artist of 1975, the year she debuted with the hit “This Will Be,” which also won for Best R&B vocal performance, Female.

She has drug issues in the early 1980s, which affected her career massively, before she reinvented herself and returned to the scene in 1987 with a terrific single,  “Jump start my heart”.

In 2009, she underwent a kidney transplant, which led her to her second memoir titled “Love Brought Me Back,” which was referred to as a “heart-wrenching chronicle of her quest for a kidney transplant”.

She was married to  Marvin Yancy, producer of the 1970s R&B group, The Independents; Andre Fischer, a drummer for the band Rufus and Kenneth Dupree a bishop with the Baptist church, and they divorced in 2004.