[1][2] Hajiya Sa'adatu Ahmad was born in 1945 in the village of Gwaigwayi, in Katsina State in northern Nigeria.
[2] At the age of fifteen she married Alhaji Aliya, a local young businessman, with whom she had twelve children.
[1] Her husband had himself sung and played the garaya lute with his father, and encouraged her singing.
She gained "a reputation as a boisterous and uninhibited performer who 'said it like it was', since she addressed issues intimate to women, about life, wealth, husbands and survival.
Hajiya Sa’adatu remarried in 1995 to Alhaji Bello Kansila, but the marriage only lasted a year.