So come this Sunday, February 26, all roads will lead to
celebrity restaurant, O'jez, inside the National Stadium, Surulere-Lagos where
the revived Elders' Forum will open in a grand style with the presence of
Liberian International singer, Miatta Fahnbulleh alongside Nigeria's acclaimed
folklorist, playwright and actor Jimi Solanke.
Meanwhile, Miatta Fanhbulleh has been rehearsing with
Jimi Solanke as both of them will be on stage for the better part of Sunday
event.
Fahnbulleh according to her biography posted on
allmusic.com, remains one Africa's finest voices. She always wanted to sing,
but the bug really bit her at 16, a desire that caused problems with her
father, the Liberian Ambassador to Sierra Leone. Liberia was not very
progressive, and women, especially ambassadors' daughters, didn't sing in dance
halls and clubs, so Fahnbulleh pursued her craft on the down-low. She once came
in second in a talent contest that she couldn't attend because her father found
out and wouldn't let her go; the judges graded her from a tape. At 19, after
graduating from high school in Sierra Leone she moved to Nairobi, Kenya to
attend Junior College. She dropped out and moved to Monrovia, Liberia to D.J.,
alienating her father who wrote her out of his will and distanced himself from
her.
She started singing professionally, often making more
money in one night then most Liberians made in a month. Shortly after that, her
father was sentenced to 20 years in prison for treason and other charges.
Seeing no future in Monrovia, Fahnbulleh boarded a plane in 1968 for New York,
NY. She immediately displayed her singing skills by entering a contest at the
Apollo Theater and coming in second. Fahnbulleh not only sang, but composed and
produced her songs also. She never made an impact in the States because of bad
advice, bad luck, and the paranoia that everybody wanted sexual favors in
return for helping her career, which went against her Muslim upbringing. Her
breakout should have been with Donald Byrd, whom she wrote and composed songs
with for an LP. A meddling friend, however, convinced her she was getting
ripped off and she backed out of the project before the recording date. A
contract with Ed Townsend, who later broke the bank with "Let's Get It
On" for Marvin Gaye, literally went up in smoke when Townsend's recording
studio mysteriously burned down. At the time, Townsend and Motown Records were
embroiled in a lawsuit over the use of Townsend's studios to record the Isley
Brothers' "It's Your Thing" while they were under contract to Motown.
She never came close to cementing a deal again and returned home in 1974. Her
time in the States did serve a purpose, she achieved a degree in Music and
Drama from the American Music & Dramatic Academy in New York. In Africa,
she started performing and recording in earnest, doing an album with Hugh
Masekela in Lagos, Nigeria that was shelved for years. She toured with Masekela
in 1976 in the States, then took part in the Festac Festivals. She moved to
England for seven years, a country where she had spent four years in boarding
school as a juvenile.
In England, she became involved with the community of
Africans and won the populace's respect before returning to Africa in 1984 to
continue her activist activities, becoming a dynamic speaker for issues
concerning women and children. Fahnbulleh became a Good Will Ambassador for
ECOWAS in 1990, an organization of 16 African counties involved in the
integration of the West Coast of Africa. In 1991, she became the official Good
Will Ambassador of Liberia. She's recorded and produced several albums.
No comments:
Post a Comment