Her mother came from a prominent Philadelphia family and was the co-creator and host for WPVI's show Visions,[2] and later worked at various stations as a camera woman and a news editor for Frontline.

[7] Songhai was also a local winner and runner-up in both the District of Columbia and New York state pageants for the Miss America competition.

While an undergraduate, Songhai landed the position of television host at the PBS affiliate WHUT-TV in Washington, D.C., and worked at WJZ-TV in Baltimore as a producer and announcer for the Maryland Lottery.

[11] The first projects were short films, public service announcements[12] and even audition tapes for reality show hopefuls.

In 2008, she covered the Crime and Justice beat for the Richard French Live show on WRNN-TV in Westchester, NY.

Songhai has also contributed to the online news network FDNN-TV covering human interest stories of East Coast firefighters.

While in college and graduate school, Songhai worked as a TV host, and producer for WHUT-TV, the PBS affiliate in Washington, DC.

Songhai is from the largest and most accomplished 15th- and 16th-century West African Empire, now Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, whose leaders emphasized education and social, economic and gender equality.