M’Balia Singley is a Philadelphia-based performing artist who has been exploring and excavating the human condition through story, song and audience engagement for the last quarter century. 

M'Balia at the public reading for her original work, "Turn", Kimmel Center 2018
M’Balia at the public reading for her original work, “Turn”, Kimmel Center 2018

CBBB @ Smoke!She has shared her musical talents in such legendary music halls as the Jazz Standard and Smalls in New York City, and the World Cafe Live and the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and she can be heard on John Legend’s Grammy-nominated debut album, Get Lifted, Orrin Evan’s #knowingishalfthebattle, and her own self-produced albums, including her recent release, Halfway There. As an actor, M’Balia has appeared in First Lady Suite, Ain’t Misbehavin and The Vagina Monologues, and as an educator she has taught music to students of all ages.

Big fun!
Big fun!

In 2017, M’Balia composed her first children’s musical, Anansi, the Spider King,  (Arthur Warner Theater, USC) and she was a 2017-2018 Jazz Resident with the Kimmel Center, composing with lead artist, Doug Hirlinger, for Dear Philadelphia. In 2018, M’Balia was selected as a theater resident with the Kimmel Center, where she began writing Turn, an examination of Shakespeare’s Othello through the lens of intersectionality in the life of an African American woman. Turn premieres February 26-28, 2020 at the Kimmel Center, and yes, that’s Black History Month.

M’Balia is a graduate of Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in history, and she attended Temple University’s Beasley School of Law.