singer; actor
Personal Information
Born on January 18, 1983, in Dublin, Ireland; daughter of Peter (an aircraft engineer) Mumba and Barbara Bishop.
Career
Began performing career on Irish television, late 1980s; appeared in stage productions in Dublin, Ireland; signed with Brill Management and Polydor Records, 1999; released first LP, Gotta Tell You, 2000.
Life's Work
In the summer of 2000, Samantha Mumba emerged as Britain's newest pop star with Gotta Tell You, an album full of danceable R&B tunes. To the surprise of many, Mumba's record also did well in North America, a tough market for foreign acts to crack, and its title track was the best-selling single in her native Ireland that year. The Dublin-born singer was hailed as a refreshing departure from the blondness of most teen singing sensations, for though Mumba speaks with a Dublin brogue, she is also of African descent. "It's an unusual cultural mix, so people notice me," she told Telegraph writer Neil McCormick. "But it would be stupid to think I could base a career on being black and Irish. Anyway, I don't think of myself as being half of one thing and half another. I'm just Irish."
Mumba's father, Peter, was an aircraft engineer from Zambia and one of a small number of African immigrants to Ireland when he married Mumba's Irish mother, Barbara Bishop, in 1980. The singer was born in Dublin in 1983, and a younger brother, Omero, followed six years later. They lived in Drumcondra, a neighborhood in north Dublin. At the age of three, Mumba was enrolled in a stage school by her parents to give her confidence, and there she began tap dance classes. One day the teachers asked if any of the children could sing. She volunteered. "I was a little, skinny, frail thing, but when I started singing, this very deep, big, loud voice came out," she told the Telegraph. "Everybody started laughing."
Catholic Education
Mumba was duly enrolled in singing lessons, and her career as a child performer was soon underway. She regularly won roles in stage plays and television dramas, but the extracurricular activities did not deter her from earning good grades at St. Mary's Holy Faith Convent School, where she was the sole black student. Mumba claimed that her race was never an issue. "I never had any problems with being a different colour," she told Claire Grant for the Mirror, a London newspaper. "But then I was headstrong and outspoken and I would never take crack from anybody."
By the time she was fifteen, Mumba was informally training her voice with a producer who had worked with the Spice Girls. At the time, she was also appearing in an update of a Gilbert and Sullivan musical in Dublin, and one night, the cast members went to a dance club. Mumba managed to talk her way inside the club's VIP room, where she introduced herself to Louis Walsh, the legendary pop impresario who had launched the careers of two of the United Kingdom's most successful boy bands, Westlife and Boyzone. Impressed with Mumba, Walsh convinced her to sever her present arrangement and sign with his company, Brill Management.
Overnight Success
Walsh arranged a five-record contract for Mumba with Polydor in the United Kingdom, and the teen--who then left school--began working on her debut album. She co-wrote seven of its dozen songs. "I found it much easier than I thought it was going to be," she said of the songwriting process in an interview with Billboard writer Andrew Boorstyn. "I worked with really lovely, down to-earth Swedish producers [Bag and Arnthor for Murlyn Music]. We played the music on a loop, and we all brainstormed and put our ideas through. They always gave me the last say as to what we actually sang." The result was the album and its single of the same name, "Gotta Tell You," which entered the British charts at number two It soon reached number one in Ireland. Released in United States on Interscope at the end of October, its first single was a Top 10 hit within days. It climbed as high as number two on the Billboard charts, but was number one in sales in the U.S.
Gotta Tell You also featured a second strong track, "Body II Body," which sampled the haunting David Bowie tune "Ashes to Ashes," as well as "Til Night Becomes Day" and "Baby Come On Over." Reviews were positive. Mumba, wrote Time music critic Christopher John Farley, "speaks the international language of pop, offering up playful lyrics, curvaceous grooves and production as smooth as newly printed bills." Billboard was also enthusiastic about the debut. "It's a collection of songs that, though sophisticatedly produced, sound natural coming from a teenager," opined Boorstyn. "There are no disturbingly precocious lines.... Instead the observations on love seem every bit as straightforward and sweet as diary entries, and they're delivered with an ideal mix of sincerity and style."
Rejected Comparisons with Rivals
Mumba was hailed as the first credible European rival to do chart battle with fellow teen singing sensations Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Still, Mumba dismissed any comparisons. "I'm not Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, and I don't want to be," she told People magazine. "I'm sure they wouldn't want to be me. I do my own thing and make my own way." She reiterated her opinions in the Billboard interview. "I'm black and Irish, which is completely different," she told Boorstyn. "I co-write my music, I have my own opinions, my own style of dancing....On the other hand, I really respect a lot of the other female artists," she continued. "It annoys me even seeing them being compared, because as far as I can see, they've got their own slant."
By the end of 2000, Mumba had enjoyed two top-five singles on the British charts, phenomenal sales in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, and Japan, as well as the unexpected American success. Walsh, her manager, had placed her on a heavy promotional schedule that left her little time for a private life. "It's especially hard in America," she confessed to McCormick in the Telegraph. "I'm going from state to state, on a plane at least once every 24 hours. Sometimes I could do 20 interviews in a day, sitting in some hotel suite with people coming in and out asking ridiculous things, like 'Are there leprechauns in Ireland?'"
Determined to Chart Her Own Future
Walsh's hit-making talents are legendary--Westlife and Boyzone sold 14 million records in five years--but even he admitted that Mumba's respectable debut in the U.S. was a surprise to him. In turn, she has been described as a turning point for his career. "People don't think it is as calculated as some of the other acts I work with," Walsh said his protégée in an interview with Jan Battles for the Sunday Times. "She can sing live, and write songs. A lot of people say she's a breath of fresh air, and can't believe she's Irish. She's an amazing dancer, does all her own image and she's no problem at all. Yet."
Mumba's talents will likely take her beyond arduous promotional travels, sell-out concert tours, and costly video shoots. She signed with Ford Models, and won a contract with cosmetics giant L'Oréal. She appeared in a Disney television special in 2001, and she was cast alongside Guy Pierce and Jeremy Irons in the Dreamworks remake of The Time Machine, based on the enduring H. G. Wells novel. In both Dublin and London, Mumba is mobbed by fans, and her life has become fodder for gossip items in Britain's tabloid press. She has been romantically linked to a number of popular male singers, but has said that she sometimes yearns for her former teenage days in Drumcondra. "I miss getting ready for a night out on a Friday, doing my hair, putting on nail varnish, trying on clothes," she told the Mirror. "I know all my friends are getting ready while I'm in yet another hotel room. I ring them to find out what they are doing and where they are going."
Works
Selected discography
- Gotta Tell You, Interscope, 2000.
Further Reading
- Billboard, November 4, 2000, p. 20.
- Mirror (U.K.), March 8, 2001, p. 4.
- News of the World (U.K.), September 17, 2000, p. 15.
- People, January 15, 2001, p. 67.
- Sunday Times (London), June 4, 2000; July 9, 2000; February 4, 2001.
- Telegraph (U.K.), December 7, 2000.
- Time, November 6, 2000, p. 129.
— Carol Brennan
