Samantha Mumba

Born in Dublin to an Irish mother and Zambian father, singer and actress Samantha Mumba has said that her unusual background and exotic beauty was accepted in Ireland with fascination rather than discrimination. Tall and graceful, with flawless skin and a dancer's build, Mumba began performing at age three at Dublin's Billie Barry Stage School. The following year she was spotted in a dance class and booked on a television program, beginning an extracurricular entertainment career that became a full-time goal when she left school at seventeen to record her debut album "Gotta Tell You." Winning the attention of producer and famed pop group creator Louis Walsh (who hit the top of the UK charts many times over with his Dublin boy bands Boyzone and Westlife) thanks to her ingenuity and her high-profile role in "The Hot Mikado," a new spin on the Gilbert and Sullivan classic produced on the Dublin stage, Mumba landed a record deal and quickly hit the charts in the UK, even managing to score a hit in the USA, an enviable accomplishment very few European pop stars can claim.