Side A
artist profile   • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• Name: Patti Boulaye

• Place of Birth: I was born in Nigeria - in a taxi between 2 towns so I am truly international!

• How do you relax and what do you do in your spare time?
I love to paint. I painted all the images that are on the album. I also love to sew and cook but I haven’t had much relaxation time because of the charity. I am also designing costumes for my show Sun Dance and I am busy fundraising for the clinics and children’s homes in Africa.

•Favourite book and why?
I like Freddie Forsythe and Jeffery Archer books. I have just read Jeffrey’s Prison Diaries. He is such a brilliant storyteller which makes you feel like a fly on the wall when you read his account of his time in prison. The book I read the most is the Bible and Our Daily Bread which I read every night and on Friday mornings at the beginning of my fast.

• Favourite album and why?
I love Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Michael Jackson’s albums. I love Everytime We Say Goodbye by Louis Armstrong and Bad by MJ. I don’t have a favourite, more like lots of favourites from different countries around the world including some Asian and Japanese music.

• Favourite Bible verse?
My favourite verse is Psalm 103 verse 5 ‘He satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles’. I can live with that! One of my wishes is that God would satisfy my mouth with good things so that my youth He would renew like the eagles. Selfish of me really but He is my father after all, I ask and hope to receive if it pleases him.

• What church do you attend?
I attend St Benedict’s Abbey in Ealing, West London.

Side B
album   career   faith   • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• What was the first song that you wrote?
The first song that I wrote was Viva Africa. Viva Africa is a prayer for Africa my husband and children love that song. We sang it at the Royal Albert Hall with a gospel choir of 3,000 voices in front of 5,500 people.

• After you had written the songs what was it like in the studio?
Going into the studio was another experience altogether: I had the best fun I had ever had recording in the studio; it was also the most spiritual experience I had ever had in all my years of show business. I had truly done my tribute to God…

• Who inspired you to write your songs?
That is a long story. It was mainly my mother. For many years she has wanted me to do a praise album. It was also important that it showed my personal belief and faith, my relationship with God and my background of all the experiences I had in my childhood and in show business. I grew up in Africa and had terrible experiences during the Biafran war and wanted to express my thoughts, emotions and experiences.

• What do you hope your songs will achieve?
My prayer when I was recording the songs was that they would bring happiness where there is sadness, hope where there is despair and inspire spontaneous praise to the Lord. If these songs bring a smile to people’s hearts and faces then I would feel that I have achieved what I set out to do.

• Did your childhood pay a part in your music?
Yes, in a big way. In His Kingdom is a combination of my spiritual journey, thoughts, emotions and experiences, from my childhood growing up in the Biafran war. There was death all around us as we said our prayers and read from the Bible. As a family we took turns to read out from the Bible and I remember one time when I was about 10 years of age, maybe younger, when my sister Maggie was reading, it said something about wisdom, knowledge and understanding being great gifts and that the greatest gift of all being wisdom. Wisdom, knowledge and understanding are all I have asked for since. I pray that God in His infinite wisdom will help me to grasp and understand the people that I meet today

• What artists give you the most inspiration?
That would have to be Louis Armstrong and also Mahalia Jackson. My mother was into Louis Armstrong so I grew up listening to him. Just hearing Nobody Knows The Trouble I See still makes me cry as it reminds me of my mother. She had 8 children to keep alive during the Biafran war; I can still see her sitting in the corner singing the words, and it still brings tears to my eyes.

• How long did it take you to produce this album and is it everything that you expected?
It took 3 weeks to record and I am pleased with the different colours and shades we have achieved. I believe that God is so colourful and so powerful and songs of praise to Him should and do echo His creations.