Patti Boulaye

Patti Boulaye, OBE (born Patricia Ngozi Ebigwei, 3 May 1954) is a British-Nigerian singer, actress and artist who rose to prominence after winning New Faces in 1978, and was among the leading black British entertainers in the 1970s and 1980s. In her native Nigeria, she is best remembered for starring in Lux commercials and Bisi, Daughter of the River, as well as her own series The Patti Boulaye Show.

Boulaye was born after her mother went into labour in a taxi that was passing through two towns in Mid-Western Nigeria, and was raised in a strict Catholic household with nine children, including airline pilot Tony Ebigwei who was killed in the Nigerian Airways plane crash of 1978. As a teenager, Boulaye survived the Biafran war, and attributes this to her strong faith.

At sixteen, she left Nigeria for the United Kingdom where she decided to become a nun, but during a sightseeing trip in London, Boulaye stood in a queue for what she assumed was Madame Tussauds, but turned out to be an audition for the original London production of Hair, and soon won a part which launched her career in musicals. Her father, who did not approve of showbusiness disowned his daughter, but later forgave her.

After Hair, she featured in Two Gentlemen of Verona, but landed her first starring role as Yum Yum in The Black Mikado under her birth name Patricia Ebigwei. Critic Tony Lane wrote: "Patricia Ebigwei's version of 'The Sun whose rays...' is, in the words of the Gramophone reviewer of this recording, the performance against which all others must now be judged. It is one of those remarkable interpretations that makes all others pale and unsatisfactory by comparison. No G and S lover is unmoved by this sensational piece of music making. Her version is a slow, erotic, languid ballad of vanity and sexual self-satisfaction that makes the conventional renditions seem prissy and just plain silly."

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