In 1951 she worked Ted Heath's band and other jazz groups, and recorded her version of "Calypso Blues", a song originally performed by Nat King Cole.
She started singing at Quaglino's Restaurant and their Allegro to great success in 1950.
She was buried in Deans Grange Cemetery, Ireland.
She died of natural causes, aged 65, on 25 June 1993 in Dublin, Ireland, where she had lived for a number of years with her second husband, Liam Morrison.
Born in Trinidad on 21 June 1928, one of five sisters, Mona Baptiste emigrated to London in 1948 on the MV Empire Windrush. While she presented herself as a clerk to London immigration, she began working towards her singing career very soon after.