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Education Quote by Sona Jobarteh

"While music is my passion in life, my commitment to a new education model for Africa is my life's mission and purpose"

About this Quote

The line draws a deliberate hierarchy: passion is what feeds her, mission is what she owes. Sona Jobarteh doesn’t diminish music; she frames it as the engine that powers something bigger. For a working musician, that’s a gutsy move in a culture that loves to romanticize artistry as a total identity. She’s insisting that art can be a platform without becoming a cage.

The word choice matters. “New education model” isn’t a charity slogan; it’s systems language. She’s signaling frustration with patchwork fixes and imported templates, the kind that photograph well but don’t rewire outcomes. “For Africa” risks sounding broad, but in context it reads as strategic: she’s speaking to donors and global audiences who often flatten the continent into a single “cause”, then redirecting that attention toward structural work. It’s a rhetorical judo move - using the visibility of a celebrated performer to smuggle in a harder conversation about institutions.

There’s subtext about legitimacy, too. As a griot and cultural custodian, Jobarteh carries tradition; by claiming education reform as purpose, she refuses the false choice between preserving heritage and building futures. The sentence also rebukes the expectation that African excellence should remain in the realm of entertainment for outside consumption. Music is the passport, education is the destination. The ambition isn’t personal branding; it’s a demand to be taken seriously where power actually reproduces itself: in schools, curricula, and who gets to shape them.

Quote Details

TopicMeaning of Life
SourceStrathmore.org article quoting her keynote remarks: “From Kora to Curriculum” (posted 2022; excerpted from her Berklee inauguration keynote in April 2023)
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Jobarteh, Sona. (2026, February 16). While music is my passion in life, my commitment to a new education model for Africa is my life's mission and purpose. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/while-music-is-my-passion-in-life-my-commitment-185509/

Chicago Style
Jobarteh, Sona. "While music is my passion in life, my commitment to a new education model for Africa is my life's mission and purpose." FixQuotes. February 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/while-music-is-my-passion-in-life-my-commitment-185509/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"While music is my passion in life, my commitment to a new education model for Africa is my life's mission and purpose." FixQuotes, 16 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/while-music-is-my-passion-in-life-my-commitment-185509/. Accessed 16 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Sona Jobarteh

Sona Jobarteh (born 1983) is a Musician from Gambia.

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