[1] Her mother is Jamaican theatre director Ahdri Zhina Mandiela.
[3] Mandiela made her television debut in 2004 on the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation as Chantay Black.
[3] In 2007, she appeared in the Disney Channel Original Movie Jump In!, alongside Keke Palmer and Corbin Bleu.
The production, based on Deborah Ellis' The Heaven Shop, was directed by her mother.
[5][6] In 2014, she starred in the play Wounded Soldiers as Lydia Grant.