“The driver just asked, ‘where are you from?’ Of course I have an accent, and I’m not going to hide the fact that I’m from West Africa. Then he said, ‘Ebola’, and I said, ‘do I LOOK like I have Ebola?'”
Later, when announcing her recently wrapped up Carnegie Hall tribute to South African singer Miriam Makeba, aka, Mama Africa, the trolls came out again.
“It should be Mama Ebola,” one wrote, and “I wonder if she is bringing any Ebloa (sic) with her?” chimed in another.
“Until that point, I felt the hysteria of it, but I kept saying to myself, ‘it’s just the media.’ Then it comes to you direct.”
Overall, she’s not been impressed with how the Western media has covered the epidemic. In her opinion, the current coverage represents a tragically lost opportunity.
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You speak Yoruba. Do you have Nigerian roots?
Yes, from my grandfather. He came from slave descendants.
What singers inspired you the most growing up?
One day a friend of my brother’s brought over a Miriam Makeba album and it was the first time I saw a black woman on the cover of an album. Before that, I only saw white females, white males and black males on vinyl covers. When you start doing things, you want somebody who looks like you to be doing it too, to get the courage to do it. That’s when I started thinking that one day, if I don’t become a human rights lawyer, I will become a singer, like her.
