Swaida was born in England and raised in Warri, Nigeria. She attended Nana Primary school, Warri, and secondary school at Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner, Massachusetts.

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She started singing as a teenager and, at the age of 14, won a song writing competition with Punch Newspapers, which took her to Lagos where her musical career started.

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While at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Monica was the dance leader at Alumni association. She led her group and did live shows at the university and she wrote poetry in the drama club that was published. She listened and learned from her mentors such as Majek Fashek to improve her music

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Monica started writing poems and music while she was a teenager. While in Nana Primary school Warri, Monica was writing songs with her younger sister. They used to sing and rap even before she knew anything about rapping! She first fell in love with drama while in Hussey College Warri.

 

She joined a theater group called Silver Line Productions with Felix Okwelum as the theatre director in Warri. She acted on stage doing dramatic poetry like Abiku etc. She also acted in plays like The Gods Are Not To Blame, House Asunder and many more.

 

She toured with Silver Line Production for years before focusing more on music. Monica Omorodion Swaida was best known in the 1990s where she did background singing for stars including:  Sunny Okosun, Evi Edna and she also did lots of jingles and voice over work.