Helen Parker-Jayne Isibor

Helen Epega, also The Venus Bushfires, is a Nigerian/British opera singer, songwriter, composer and performance artist, who has written as composed the world's first opera in Pidgin English. Isibor is the daughter of a medical consultant and a storybook writer, both of whom were interested in music. She lived in Benin City until she moved to London in the 1980s when she was seven. After attending an all-girls convent school, she graduated in Communications and Media at Brunel University London. She was initially a rapper but became interested in more politically aware singers such as Fela Kuti and Miriam Makeba. When she was in Ibiza in 2007, she discovered the hang drum which has since become her favourite instrument. Inspired after seeing Wagner's Parsifal, her Song Queen: A Pidgin Opera was presented in London in July 2015.