Adele Emily Gouraguine, born 10 March 1987, better known as Emeli Sandé, is an English
born, Scottish recording artist and songwriter.
She first became prominent after she featured on the track "Diamond Rings" by the rapper
Chipmunk.
It was their first top 10 single on the UK Singles Chart.
In 2010, she featured on "Never Be Your Woman" by the rapper Wiley, which became another
top ten hit.
In 2012 she received the Brit Awards Critics' Choice Award.
She has written for a number of artists, including Alicia Keys, Cher Lloyd, Parade, Susan Boyle,
Gabrielle, Preeya Kalidas, Rihanna, Leona Lewis, Alesha Dixon, Amber Riley, Cheryl Cole,
Tinie Tempah, Ella Henderson, Mutya Keisha Siobhan, and Fantasia Barrino.
In 2010, she signed a publishing deal with EMI Music Publishing.
She later announced that Virgin Records had given her a record deal.
Sandé released her first solo single "Heaven" in August 2011.
Sandé has three number-one singles across the United Kingdom and Ireland with "Read
All About It" with Professor Green, "Next to Me" and "Beneath Your Beautiful" a collaboration
with Labrinth.
Her album Our Version of Events spent 7 non-consecutive weeks at number 1 and became the best-selling
album of 2012 in the UK, with over 1 million sales.
In 2012 she performed in both the Opening and Closing ceremonies of the London Olympics.
Early life Emeli Sandé was born Adele Emily Sandé in
Sunderland, to a Zambian father, Joel Sandé, and English mother, Diane Sandé-Wood, on
10 March 1987.
Her father moved from Zambia and met her mother while they were both at university in Sunderland.
The family moved to Alford, Aberdeenshire when she was four.
Sandé studied medicine, in the five-year MBChB course, at the University of Glasgow,
where she obtained a degree in neuroscience.
She has stated that education was one of the most important things to her, because, if
her music career failed, she would have something to fall back on.
Further, Sandé said that her manager, Adrian Sykes, 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".
Sandé has a tattoo of artist Frida Kahlo.
Sandé wrote her first song at age 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.
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.
Sandé attended school at Alford Academy in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, at which 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".
Career 2008–10: 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 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 written by
David Nolan in 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 aka 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 first debut single, "Diamond Rings".
The single charted at No. 6 on the UK Singles Charts, making it Chipmunk and Sandé's first
ever Top 10 Hit.
She later appeared on another single singing guest vocals, after collaborating with Wiley
on his comeback single "Never Be Your Woman", the single charted at number-eight on the
UK Singles Charts 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."
2011–13: Our Version of Events and breakthrough
Sandé revealed her first solo single would be released in early 2011.
There was some speculation surrounding what track she would release, after many newspapers
stated that it would be "Daddy".
The first official single from her upcoming debut album was "Heaven" and was released
on 14 August 2011.
The song has 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, for British Breakthrough
Act.
Sandé went on to write material for the original line-up of Sugababes.
On 24 January 2012, Sandé performed a one-off gig for Q Magazine at XOYO, London.
She was supported by British soul singer Michael Kiwanuka.
She recorded a version of David Guetta's "Titanium" and the pair performed the song at NRJ Music
Awards in France.
Sandé has penned a track for Naughty Boy's upcoming LP entitled "Hollywood" which features
soul singer Gabrielle.
It is about fame coming and going and will be released in November.
On 27 July 2012, Sandé sang "Abide with Me" at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer
Olympics, and her song "Heaven" was used to accompany the section with Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Both appear on the Isles of Wonder CD of the opening ceremony's music.
NBC also used her song "Wonder" during the credits roll at the end of the tape-delayed
ceremony broadcast in the United States.
On 12 August 2012, Sandé sang "Read All About It" at the closing ceremony, while a video
montage of emotional scenes from the games was shown.
She also covered a version of John Lennon's "Imagine" exclusively for the BBC, who used
it for their end credits montage at the conclusion of their Olympics coverage.
Sandé is a winner of the 2013 European Border Breakers Awards.
The European Border Breakers Awards honour the best new music acts in Europe.
The award ceremony takes place at the Eurosonic Noorderslag music festival in Groningen.
She won two BRIT 2013 awards for Best British female and Best British Album.
In January 2013 it was revealed that Ella Henderson has anticipated work with Sandé
on her debut album.
The song "Next to Me" won two Ivor Novello Awards for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically"
and "PRS for Music Most Performed Work" in 2013.
2013: Second studio album In May 2013, she performed at the White House
in Washington, D.C., as one of the featured artists at the award ceremony when President
Obama presented Carole King with the Library of Congress Gershwin Medal.
From June 2013, Sandé will be writing her second upcoming studio album, which is slated
for release in summer 2014.
She has already written several songs, which include "Pluto" with Naughty Boy, "Enough",
"Call Me What You Like", "You and Me" and "This Much Is True" which was written for
her husband, Adam.
During U.S. Summer Tour in July 2013, Sandé performed "Free" from Rudimental's album Home,
"Lifted" from Naughty Boy's album Hotel Cabana.
From the beginning of 2013, Sandé has been working on her second studio album, which
is slated to be released in 2015.
Artistry Musical style
Sandé possesses a soprano vocal range.
Sandé said she wanted her music to be remembered as that of Nina Simone, one of her favourite
artists.
She went on to say, Nina Simone achieved this for herself and writing her own songs is the
best way possible.
She also said; "These days nothing lasts, music is like fast food, you're in then you're
out.
She said, as much as she would like, she would never play the piano as well as Simone, but
she would give it her best shot.
She loves the songs Simone produced, including "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free"
and Simone's version of "I Think It's Going to Rain Today".
She said that Simone's original songs are very poetic and she said "So when I listen
to commercial stuff at the moment, I’m just thinking ‘haven’t you heard Nina Simone,
haven’t you heard how a song should be written?"
She went onto say "We choose and consume, feast and forget, then rush on to the next
hot thing.
There's no point chasing that kind of success because it's so transient.
Far better to follow own paths and be true to."
Sandé began working in the studio with Naughty Boy in 2009, where the pair first worked together
on Chipmunk's debut album, I Am Chipmunk.
When Sandé was 16 years of age, her parents took her to Alicia Keys Songs in A Minor Tour
and she said she always wanted Keys to hear her music.
She spoke on why she likes Keys so much; "I’d read about her background and identified with
her on so many levels.
She was mixed race like me, a great student who’d been top of her class, who played
piano and loved Nina Simone.
And there she was in the pop charts, yet with songs that had a message.
I saw 16,000 people hanging on her every word and thought, "I want this kind of attention.
I want Alicia to know my music."
The pair met when Sandé had just came back from New York and just began a second songwriting
stint, but this time involved with Keys.
The pair sat at a piano and played for hours trying to come up with a good track.
She said that she wanted the songs on her debut album to be fresh and she wanted to
try and take it back how she wrote songs at the beginning of her career.
Sandé had classical music training as a songwriter in her teens and learnt to play the piano
at an early age, and getting across that she played, made and wrote her own music was very
important to her.
She said on the album, she wanted people to see every side of her as an artist, so it
was important to have songs there where there could be a real connection with the lyric,
rather than there just be throwaway pop music.
Joni Mitchell and Lauryn Hill were also major influences for the album.
Songwriting
While making her debut album, Sandé began to work with Tinie Tempah.
She co-wrote "Let Go", on which she provided guest vocals.
She also started working with Devlin after recording a song titled "Dreamer".
Sandé later revealed she would be working on Alesha Dixon's upcoming album, The Entertainer.
She co-wrote the hit single "Radio" along with Shahid Khan.
and co-wrote tracks on Cheryl Cole's albums as well as Professor Green's album, which
Sandé gave guest vocals on.
She revealed that she is Simon Cowell's favourite song-writer at the moment; due to her writing
songs for Leona Lewis and Susan Boyle.
Sandé stated in an interview; she said that she would love to meet Boyle after writing
songs for her saying, "I haven’t met her yet.
I just sent her the song.
I’d love to meet her because I think she is a bit of a rock star."
One song that Sandé had cowritten for Boyle will appear on her new album, titled "This
Will Be The Year".
Leona had heard a couple of songs so we had a week in the studio with her.
Leona and I got along really well.
Then we had another week together.
It was very natural.
She recorded a song called Trouble and another called Mountains, so I look forward to hearing
them on her album."
There have been rumours she is writing a song for Rihanna.
It was revealed after Professor Green announced his album tracking list for his album, At
Your Inconvenience, that Sandé would feature on the first single from the album, "Read
All About It".
The single was released in October 2011 before the album was released.
The pair also performed the song live on The X Factor results show.
She draws on influences for her music from Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell, Lauryn Hill and
Amy Winehouse.
Sandé said that all her songs were about World peace and political issues.
Sandé said that the key to a good song when songwriting is using "honesty" and "raw emotion"
as the best way to write.
She said that if she attempts to write something which is "too smart" the creative process
will not work for her.
"Kill the Boy" was one of the first ideas that came to Sandé's head.
She said if she has to work on a song longer than a day, she will not go back to it, as
she said it won't work.
She went onto say if it was to work, that the idea for the song would be almost instant.
Personal life In January 2012, Sandé confirmed that she
was engaged to her then unidentified, long-term boyfriend of seven years.
Her boyfriend had requested not to be identified and Sandé said that he is not in the music
industry but is a scientist.
Sandé's fiancé was revealed as marine biologist Adam Gouraguine when the pair married in his
home nation of Montenegro on 15 September 2012.
Sandé has said she will take his name and be still known as Emeli Sandé.
Discography
Our Version of Events Touring
Headlining Our Version of Events Tour
Supporting Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto Tour
Music videos Awards and nominations
List of awards and nominations received by Emeli Sandé
References
External links Official website
Interview with Emeli Sandé's manager, HitQuarters 5 December 2012