Miatta Fahnbulleh

Born into a family of Liberian diplomats, Miatta Fahnbulleh never accepted that her status as an ambassador’s daughter would forbid her from singing¹. At sixteen, a talent contest, a father who discovered her participation and blocked her path to the stage. The judges noted her performance on a cassette tape and awarded her second prize. She would carry this verdict for the rest of her life.

In brief

Key dates

From Monrovia to Harlem: rebel and trained

Miatta Fahnbulleh was born in the 1950s in Monrovia². Her father, H. Boimah Fahnbulleh Sr., was a diplomat. Her mother, Mary Brownell, was a women’s rights activist and Liberia Goodwill Ambassador for maternal health. She had a younger brother, Henry Boimah Fahnbulleh Jr., who later became Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In 1960s Liberia, an ambassador’s daughter who dreamed of singing clashed with a social norm that forbade her from performing publicly³. She practiced in secret. When she won second prize in a local contest, her father forbade it. She obtained her ticket to the United States in 1968, where she studied at the American Music and Dramatic Academy and earned a degree in music and theater. In Harlem, she entered the Apollo Theater contest and finished second again. She composed and produced her own tracks, but the New York scene proved ruthless: an album project with Donald Byrd collapsed because a friend persuaded her that she was being exploited; a contract with Ed Townsend, the author of “Let’s Get It On” for Marvin Gaye, went up in smoke when Townsend’s studio caught fire. In 1974, she returned to Liberia.

Return to Africa and consecration

Her return to the continent marked the beginning of her African career⁴. She recorded an album with Hugh Masekela in Lagos, which remained unreleased for years. In 1976, she participated in Masekela’s American tour, then performed at FESTAC 77 in 1977.

She released Amo Sakee Sa on Afrodisc (1978), In Kokolioko and Miatta on EMI (1979), then The Message Of The Revolution on Pan Afric (1981)⁵. Critic Craig Tower of Rootsworld cited Kokolioko as “one of the most beautiful records I have ever heard, African, reggae or otherwise”.

In 1977, she settled in Great Britain for seven years, a country where she had spent four years at boarding school in her childhood⁶. She engaged with the local African community and won public respect. Returning to Africa in 1984, she dedicated herself to activism while continuing her musical career.

Humanitarian and activist

Miatta Fahnbulleh committed herself to women’s rights and girls’ education⁷. In 1990, she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador of ECOWAS. The following year, the Liberian government entrusted her with the same title. In 2005, she founded OGEO, a school that offers more than 180 scholarships to Liberian young girls.

The civil war that ravaged Liberia from 1989 to 2003 left her with a silent rage: “Singing on stage for an hour or two is not enough; they tell you that you are wonderful, then I go back to my world and I have to go out into the street every day”⁸.

She ran for the Liberian Senate in 2014⁹. In 2016, she lent her voice as narrator to the documentary The Land Beneath Our Feet. The New African described her as one of those “people who truly deserve the title GIFTED”, and AllMusic as “one of Africa’s most beautiful voices”.

Major works

Legacy

Miatta Fahnbulleh is a rare case in the history of African music: an artist who triumphed on three continents without ever renouncing her roots. She proved that a Liberian could sing in the United States, record in England and produce at home, while building a school for girls from her country. Her name — Miatta — means in the local language “Where are you going?”. Her answer, all her life, was simple: everywhere¹⁰.

Sources and references

• Blast from the Past