Akosua Busia

Akosua Gyamama Busia (born 30 December 1966) is a Ghanaian actress, writer and songwriter. She is known to film audiences for playing Nettie Harris in the 1985 film The Color Purple. She is the daughter of Ghanaian Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia.

Early life Busia was born in Accra in 1966. She is the daughter of Kofi Abrefa Busia, who was prime minister of the Republic of Ghana (from 1969 to 1972) and a prince of the royal family of Wenchi, a subgroup of the Ashanti, making Akosua a princess too. Her sister, Abena Busia, is a poet and academic, who was a professor in English at Rutgers University, and since 2017 has been the Ghanaian ambassador to Brazil.

Busia grew up in Ghana, and began her acting career at the age of 16, attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama on scholarship. Her first acting role was as Juliet in an otherwise white cast, performing Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet at Oxford University, where her siblings were studying.

Busia's film roles include a notable performance as Bessie in a 1986 film adaptation of Richard Wright's novel Native Son (with Geraldine Page and Matt Dillon). She also starred in Hard Lessons alongside Denzel Washington and Lynn Whitfield in 1986. Busia played Nettie, the younger sister of Whoopi Goldberg's character Celie Harris, in Steven Spielberg's 1985 The Color Purple, adapted from Alice Walker's novel of the same title, as Ruth in Badge of the Assassin (1985), as Jewel in John Singleton's Rosewood (1997), and as Patience in Antoine Fuqua's Tears of the Sun (2003). She has also appeared on television in the series ER. She was one of three co-writers for the screenplay adaptation of Toni Morrison's 1987 novel Beloved for the 1998 film version of the same name directed by Jonathan Demme. Busia also co-wrote the song "Moon Blue" with Stevie Wonder for his album A Time 2 Love, released in 2005. Her poem "Mama" is included in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.

After 18-year hiatus to raise her daughter, in 2016 Busia returned to acting in the off-Broadway and Broadway production of Danai Gurira's play Eclipsed, alongside Lupita Nyong'o. For her performance off-Broadway, she received an Obie Award for Distinguished Performance as Rita

In 2024 Busia released the drama film In Search of a Blessed Life: He Who Hath, which was inspired by the book He that Hath, to Him Shall Be Given by Dag Heward-Mills. Later that same year Busia's documentary Stevie Wonder in Ghana: In Search of a Blessed Life was also released.

Personal life On 12 October 1996, Akosua Busia married the American film director John Singleton, with whom she has a daughter — Hadar Busia-Singleton (born 3 April 1997); the couple divorced on 15 June 1997. Their daughter attended school in Ghana, before returning to the US.

Filmography

Film