Patti Boulaye OBE is a British-Nigerian singer, actress and artist. Born Patricia Ngozi Ebigwei in 1954 in mid-west Nigeria. She left Nigeria at age16 for the UK. In 1978, she became famous for winning the TV talent show New Faces, gaining the maximum 120 points. Soon afterwards, she released her first album You Stepped into My Life in 1978.
Her stage credits include starring in the musical Hair, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and playing Carmen Jones at London’s Old Vic Theatre. On TV she appeared in The Fosters, Dempsey and Makepeace. In 1984, she had her own series, The Patti Boulaye Show on Channel 4 and appeared in the BBC series The Real Marigold Hotel in 2016.
Boulaye founded the “Support for Africa Charity”, which builds clinics in rural Africa and a school in Lesotho in partnership with Prince Harry’s charity, ‘Sentebale’. In 2002, Boulaye led 5000 gospel singers down The Mall for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations. The songs included her own composition Celebrate Good News. Boulaye is the Founder and Director the BIPADA Academy. The charity gives advice on life skills, emotional, social, international etiquette, and personal development. She received an OBE Award for her charity work in the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa in 2016.
Ref: Patti Boulaye – Wikipedia
Photo By Ngozi9 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82472613
