12/01/2025
DIASPORAN PROFILE: SAMANTHA MUMBA
Born on 18 January 1983 in Dublin, Ireland, Samantha Tamania Anne Cecilia Mumba is an Irish singer and actress. She was born to a Zambia father Peter Mumba and Irish mother.
From the ages of three to fifteen, she attended Dublin's Billie Barry Stage School. At 15, she was discovered by Irish music executive Louis Walsh (manager of Boyzone and Westlife) on a RTÉ TV talent show called Let Me Entertain You.
Walsh was impressed by her talent and she was signed to Polydor Records. She shot to fame in 2000 with the release of her debut single ‘Gotta Tell You’. The single reached the Top 10 in Ireland, the U.K. and the U.S. She eventually dropped out of school to focus on her music career, explaining that it was becoming difficult to stay in school and work on her music.
She subsequently spent several months moving between Denmark, Sweden, the U.K. and Ireland, where she co-wrote and recorded her debut album ‘Gotta Tell You’. The album stayed on the charts for six months and was eventually certified platinum for sales of 1 million copies. Five more Top 10 hits followed in the U.K. and she had another top 50 hit in the U.S. Another hit from the album was ‘Baby Come Over’, a remixed version of ‘Baby Come on Over’. The song featured on the U.S. edition of the album. To date, her first album has sold over 4 million copies worldwide.
After a relatively short music career, she starred in numerous films, most notably in the 2002 film ‘The Time Machine’. She has also appeared in a number of Irish independent films. She returned to public attention when she appeared in the 2008 series of ‘Dancing on Ice’.
In 1998, Mumba was cast as the lead in ‘The Hot Mikado’, a jazzy production based on Gilbert and Sullivan's opera. In 2001, Mumba contributed to the track ‘You Raise Me Up’ by the Celtic Tenors. This was followed by the release of an EP titled ‘Samantha Sings Christmas’ (2001).
After her second album ‘Woman was cancelled’, her music career was put on hold and she began auditioning for films. Before that, in 2001, following her international success with ‘Gotta Tell You’, Arnold Leibovit picked her to play Mara in The Time Machine. Mara is a girl who is part of a human civilisation which has regressed to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle in the year AD 802,701.
In 2001, she was nominated in the Best Remixed Recording category at the Grammy Awards. She won the 2002 Meteor Music Awards’ Best Female Singer category and Smash Hits Poll Winners' Party Best New Female category. In 2000 and 2001, her she was nominated in the following categories at the MOBO Awards’ Best Album ‘Gotta Tell You’ and ‘Best Video, ‘Gotta Tell You’.
Picture: Samantha Mumba
