Strydom pursued a tertiary education at the University of Pretoria where she graduated in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, specialising in drama.

Among her musical collaborators are Janine Neethling, Didi Kriel, Lize Beekman, Peter McLea, Siegfried Pretsch and Angerie van Wyk.

Also in 1979, Strydom began working for the Cape Provincial Arts Board (Capab) where she starred in theatre pieces such as Die Wonderwerk (The Miracle) and "Kinkels innie kabel" (Hitches in the Cable).

In the same year she also began freelancing as an actress, cabaret singer, disc jockey, television presenter and writer, this all after winning the lead role motion picture by Franz Marx, called Pasgetroud (Just Married).

In 1980 she was engaged as a singer for the television programme Musiek en Liriek, together with a large group of her colleagues in the Afrikaans music industry.

This programme would turn out to have a lasting impact on the development of Afrikaans popular music being, in the words of Jannie du Toit, a kind of "belated folk revolution".

Johannesburg's famous Market Theatre was the venue for her first performance in one of Hennie Aucamp's cabarets, Met Permissie Gesê (Said With Permission).

The writer Hennie Aucamp had an enormous influence on Strydom's development as a cabaret singer, and she still acknowledges him as her mentor.

Strydom achieved notoriety in 1986 for giving the black power salute after one of her songs in her cabaret at the Oude Libertas Hall in Stellenbosch.

Botha's presidency it would have been taboo for any white Afrikaans woman to use this salute on stage in front of a white-only audience.

Shortly after this scandal Strydom was facing her own private struggle with bipolar depression, something she has written about honestly in her play In Full Light, and in the song Strydom/Amandla.

The Incredible Journey of Tinkerbell van Tonder was her next one-woman-show, which she performed at the State Theatre in Pretoria, at the Grahamstown Festival, and at the Opera House in her hometown, Port Elizabeth.

Her next project was Vrou by die Spieël (Woman at the Mirror), her third CD which she created in collaboration with Didi Kriel and Lize Beekman.

In a prolific year (1997) Strydom toured Belgium with Vrou by die Spieël and State of the Heart, staged the same works at arts festivals in South Africa, and also created the cabaret 'n Vuur gevang in Glas using texts by Hennie Aucamp.

In the same year she was also attacked viciously by three Rotweillers, but was consoled when Nelson Mandela paid her a personal visit after hearing of the incident.

In the following year Strydom was inspired to write Volstoom (Full Steam), a funeral cabaret, which she then premiered at the Aardklop festival in Potchefstroom.

She also helped to rase funds for the Elijah School Fundraising Project by performing her first one-woman show State of Heart in Jeffreys Bay.

In recent years she has remained active on the festival scene in South Africa, which is an integral part of any performance career in that country.

The Low Countries have also seen her performing regularly on their stages, singing at venues like the Koninklijk Teater Carré in September 2008.