Whose Face Am I? Adoption, Identity, and the Music of Mon Rovîa
Why We’re Sharing This Song about Adoption Identity
If you haven’t heard Mon Rovîa’s sing click on this YouTube video to the right.
His music is compelling and thoughtful. This one is entitled “Whose Face Am I?” in which he considers his adoption.
The following are only a few of the things that affect his music.
- –Born in Liberia in Western Africa in the midst of war, all he knew prior to seven was chaos and violence
- –Mother died giving birth to a younger child
- –Grandmother took care of him, another brother, and a sister.
- –To protect him, his grandmother took him to live with a white missionary family who eventually took him to the United States. Narrowly escaped the life of a child soldier during the Second Liberian Civil War.
Honest Talk About Adoption Identity
Listening to Mon Rovia’s songs and interviews, such as the one linked on this page with Mel Robins, helps us talk honestly about identity, loss, love, and belonging—without rushing anyone to feel a certain way.
Mon Rovîa’s song “Whose Face Am I?” If you’ve heard it, you know it doesn’t try to tidy adoption into a feel‑good ending. Instead, it sits in the tension—the space many adoptees live in.
Whose Face Am I
Song by Mon Rovîa
Janjay
Your father is a Senegali
But he never knew that our mother was pregnant with you
And he left
Hey Maria
Won’t you come down
I’ve been waiting far too long
Every passing mirror
Shows me someone I cried for
And I wanna know
Whose face am I?
I been reaching
Through lonely seasons
Trying to give meaning
To phantom feelings
Yearning in my soul
For a name I’ll never know
Hey soldier
What’d you go see her for
Was it love in the war
Or the vices of a man
Did you even know
You left something behind
Whose face am I?
I been reaching
Through lonely seasons
Trying to give meaning
To phantom feelings
Yearning in my soul
For a name I’ll never know
Whose face am I?
Not Filled With Bitterness
He was adopted by an American family and raised in Appalachia, a place whose sounds, rhythms, and storytelling traditions deeply shaped his music. Old‑time melodies, gospel harmonies, and mountain honesty all show up in his work.
He has shared openly that he does not know his birth mother. That absence isn’t filled with bitterness in his music, but it isn’t erased either.
There’s a line in the song that many adoptees may wonder whether or not they say it out loud: did he know he left something behind? In Mon Rovîa’s case, listeners often wonder about his biological father—who he was, what he carried, what unknowingly lives on in the son.
The song doesn’t demand answers. It allows the question to exist.
Love and Still Longing
You can love your adoptive family and still feel the pull of what you don’t know. You can feel grounded in your life and unsettled about your origins at the same time. Mon Rovîa’s Appalachian upbringing gave him belonging—and his music shows that belonging and loss are not opposites. They coexist.
Adoptive parents often ask us how to support adoptees through identity questions. One important answer is this: don’t rush them past the questions. Curiosity is not rejection. Grief is not ingratitude.
Open adoption, when possible and healthy, can soften some of these unknowns. It doesn’t remove every ache, but it can replace silence with truth and imagination with reality.
Compassionate Political Songs
Mon Rovîa’s music also carries a quiet political thread—rooted in human dignity, displacement, and empathy rather than party lines. It reflects what many adoptees feel: that identity is shaped by systems, borders, and decisions made long before they had a voice.
If you are an adoptee, Whose Face Am I? isn’t asking you to solve yourself. It’s reminding you that your questions make sense. Adoption identity is complicated. It can also be a beautiful discovery.
Your story is allowed to be layered.
At Heart to Heart Adoptions, we believe adoptees deserve honesty, space, and lifelong support—not pressure to be “at peace” on anyone else’s timeline.