Adele Emily Sandé ( SAN-day; previously Gouraguine; born 10 March 1987), known professionally as Emeli Sandé, is a British singer and songwriter. Born in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England and raised in Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Sandé rose to prominence after her guest appearance on Chipmunk's 2009 single "Diamond Rings", which peaked within the top ten of the UK singles chart. The following year, she guest appeared on Wiley's single "Never Be Your Woman", which also peaked within the chart's top ten. In 2012, she received the Brit Awards' Critics' Choice Award.
Sandé's first solo single, "Heaven", was released in August 2011. She peaked atop both the UK singles chart and Irish singles chart twice with her guest appearance on Professor Green's single "Read All About It" that same year, and her 2012 single "Beneath Your Beautiful" (with Labrinth). Her debut studio album, Our Version of Events (2012), spent ten non-consecutive weeks atop the UK albums chart, and, with one million domestic sales, became the best-selling UK album of 2012. That same year, she performed in both the opening and closing ceremonies of the London Olympics. She won Best British Female Solo Artist and British Album of the Year at the 2013 Brit Awards.
Her second studio album, Long Live the Angels (2016), debuted at number two on the UK albums chart. In 2017, she won the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, becoming her fourth win in total. In 2018, she performed the singing voice of Thethuthinnang in the miniseries Watership Down.
Early life
Adele Emily Sandé was born in Sunderland, to a Zambian father, Joel Sandé, and an English mother, Diane Sandé-Wood, on 10 March 1987. Her father, having moved from Zambia, met her mother while they were both at the polytechnic in Sunderland. The family moved to Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, when she was four.
Sandé wrote her first song at the age of 11, for her primary-school talent show. She remembers that, "was the first time I thought I might be a songwriter. I always knew I wanted to be a musician and I knew I wanted to write because the people I was listening to all wrote. I never thought it was an option to sing anyone else's songs." The first song she wrote was called "Tomorrow Starts Again" – the song had proper structure and even a middle eight.
Sandé attended school at Alford Academy, where her father was a teacher. She said, "I hated to be ill and to miss a day because I was so hungry to learn. I was very shy, nerdy and extremely well-behaved. Inevitably, throughout secondary school, it was part and parcel of my identity that I was Mr. Sandé's daughter. No way could I muck about or get into trouble, because it would've got back to him within minutes. And Dad was strict, let me tell you."
Choice FM invited the 15-year-old Sandé to London to take part in their "Rapology" competition. Richard Blackwood also had her down to MTV's Camden studios to sing gospel. It was the first London appearance of her career. By the time she reached the age of 16, she had a record deal with Telstar Records within reach. However, understanding the opportunity that the university could also offer her, she turned down the deal.
Sandé studied medicine, in the five-year MBChB course at the University of Glasgow, but left after obtaining a degree in clinical medicine, specialising in neuroscience. She has stated that education was important to her, because, if her music career failed, she would have something to fall back on. Her manager Adrian Sykes, she said, had waited patiently from when she was 16: "Adrian really respects that I want to get an education behind me. He also knows my parents are keen that I finish university".
There have been many who have inspired Sandé throughout her life. One important influence was Frida Kahlo, so important that she has a tattoo of the artist's portrait on her forearm. Just after leaving medical school, she made the decision to get the tattoo, which, for her, represented strength and bravery. Kahlo was inspirational for Sandé due to the unique story of her battle with polio at a very young age which went on to inspire her artwork. She knew that her decision to pursue music and quit school would require a sense of fearlessness that she gained through Kahlo's expression of art.
Career
2008–2010: Career beginnings
Sandé's sister made a video of her playing the piano and singing to one of her favourite songs, "Nasty Little Lady". They sent the clip to Trevor Nelson's BBC Urban music competition. Sandé won the show and was offered a record deal, but the management that she'd met via the competition decided against the deal.
Emeli had become involved in the Urban Scot collective who helped and encouraged her career by promoting her in Scotland, and – according to Emeli Sandé: The Biography by David Nolan (2013) – also released an album of songs called Have You Heard? on Glasgow's Souljawn Records, which was sold at gigs. Several tracks were also made available to download.
Her parents also sent BBC Radio 1Xtra a CD of her songs. Ras Kwame played her on his "Homegrown Sessions", and four artists that year were asked to do a show in Soho. She met with Watford-born music producer/writer Shahid Khan a.k.a. Naughty Boy, who had previously worked with Ms Dynamite and Bashy, and they began writing tracks for artists such as Alesha Dixon, Chipmunk, Professor Green, Devlin, Preeya Kalidas, Cheryl Cole, and Tinie Tempah. Sandé soon signed a record deal with Virgin Records and EMI Records.
In an interview, she said, "I was doing a show in London for 1Xtra and I met this guy called Naughty Boy. We got in the studio and we clicked work-wise. We just started writing, not necessarily for me, we just thought 'let's write a pop tune' and experiment. And we wrote the Chipmunk track and I thought nothing of it. Naughty Boy sent it off to Chipmunk who really liked it and wrote his stuff around it." She signed a record deal with Virgin Records in 2010. She later signed another deal with EMI Records in early 2011. Sandé made her singing career debut in 2009 after appearing on the track she wrote for Chipmunk's debut single, "Diamond Rings". The single peaked at number six on the UK singles chart, making it Chipmunk and Sandé's first ever Top 10 hit.
She later sang guest vocals on another single, after collaborating with Wiley on his comeback single "Never Be Your Woman". The single reached number eight on the UK singles chart, becoming Sandé's second consecutive Top 10 Single. Sandé decided against using the name Adele Sandé, due to Adele's growing success, so used her middle name instead. She revealed: "I changed it as soon as Adele came out. I just thought, 'You've kind of taken the [name] now', so I went with my middle name. She was just getting bigger and bigger, so I thought I just really need it."
2011–2013: Our Version of Events and breakthrough
Sandé revealed her first solo single would be released in early 2011. There was some speculation surrounding which track she would release after many newspapers stated that it would be "Daddy". The first official single from her upcoming debut album was "Heaven", released on 14 August 2011. The song received positive reviews from blogs such as This Must Be Pop and Robot Pigeon. She confirmed that "Daddy" would be the second official single released from Our Version of Events. Sandé achieved her first number one single on the UK singles chart after "Read All About It" entered at number one.
On 26 November, Sandé performed at the LG ARENA in Birmingham for BRMB 2011. On 15 December 2011, she was named as the Brit Awards Critics' Choice for 2012. Her album Our Version of Events reached number one in the UK after its release in February 2012. Sandé's debut album includes songs written by her and has been reviewed as having "richly melodic, classically powerful, retro-futurist soul-pop songs".
It was announced that she was up for another BRIT Award in 2012…