Born in Trinidad, West Indies, circa 1927, Mona Baptiste travelled to Europe in 1948 on the M.V. Empire Windrush, a boat symbolising the beginning of mass Caribbean migration to Britain. Unlike the majority of the ship's travellers, Mona sailed first class from Trinidad, (departing May 20th) and was even mentioned in the Jamaican press as a "blues singer," going to London "to take up musical study" and "an engagement with a dance orchestra" — once the vessel reached the island where it took on most of its England-bound passengers, on the 26th of May. She arrived in Tilbury on 21 June 1948. By mid-March 1949, she had signed with Cab Kaye and the Cabinettes, a new band organised by a part-Ghanaian singer and musician. Early in June 1949, with her eye on taking her career to the next level, Mona left Cab Kaye and began singing with Stephane Grapelly's Quintet. With her photogenic qualities, film tests followed, but she couldn't land any roles in British productions. That changed when she went to the continent. She signed a recording contract with Polydor in Germany, where she had hits and acted in a number of films. She was travelling between Britain, Ireland and Germany from the 1950s until the 1990s. She died in Krefeld, Germany of natural causes in 1993.