Cameroonian gospel singer TelDebbie has just released her debut single titled “What the Lord Has Said.”
TelDebbie was born on 8th June 1972 to Mr. and Mrs. Mbunya. She was named Telelen, meaning “a child without a name.” At age 29, she was renamed Deborah. As a child, it was not uncommon to catch TelDebbie climbing on cupboards or chairs, holding an object as a microphone, and singing at the top of her voice. This behavior was seen as worldliness by her strict born-again parents, earning her some beatings.
Among her peers, she was often tagged as “mami forming” because she sang songs that were not considered real since no one knew them. At age 9, her siblings laughed at a song she had created, which led her to stop singing the “unreal” songs that came to her mind. Little did she know that this was a gift and a talent. Although she stopped creating original songs, she continued through secondary school, remixing other people’s songs to express the feelings she held inside. She was a member of an all-girls group in high school, where they performed both on and off campus.
As an educationist, TelDebbie would turn challenging topics, concepts, or formulas into songs. This earned her the title of “success story maker” as every child she taught achieved great success. Children with learning disabilities found learning fun with her. She has written many school songs, anthems, as well as gospel songs. It was during the recording of one of the school songs that the studio engineer, Mbotake Christian, challenged her to do a gospel single. She immediately embraced the idea, as if to say, “Telelen Deborah, what the Lord has said concerning your life, so shall it be. Amen.”
