Emeli Sandé Biography

Adele Emeli Sandé play /sænˈdeɪ/ san-day, known by her stage name Emeli Sandé, is a Scottish R&B and soul recording artist and songwriter.

Sandé first became known to the public eye after she featured on rapper Chipmunk's debut single, "Diamond Rings", which gained herself and Chipmunk a first top 10 singles on the UK Singles Chart. In 2010, she appeared again on Roll Deep star, Wiley's "Never Be Your Woman", which became another top ten hit. Simon Cowell called her "his favourite songwriter at the minute". She has written for a number of artists, including Cher Lloyd, Susan Boyle, Preeya Kalidas, Leona Lewis, Cheryl Cole, and Tinie Tempah.

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, and her debut album, Our Version of Events, is set to be released on 13 February 2012. She also appears as a guest artist on Professor Green's single "Read All About It" which achieved number one spot on the UK Singles Chart.

Early life

Sandé studied medicine at the University of Glasgow, with an intercalated degree in neuroscience. She said that education was one of the most important things to her, stating that if her music career failed, she has education to fall back on. Sandé said that her manager, Adrian Sykes, waited patiently since she was 16, saying "Adrian really respects that I want to get an education behind me. He also knows my parents are keen that I finish university."

2009–2010: Career beginnings

Sandé began by writing tracks for artists such as Alesha Dixon, Chipmunk, Professor Green, Devlin, Preeya Kalidas, Cheryl Cole, and Tinie Tempah. She 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 announced she changed her name from Adele Sandé to her middle name Emeli Sandé due to Adele. She spoke; "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–present: Our Version of Events and songwriting

While making her debut album, Sandé began to work with Tinie Tempah. She co-wrote "Let Go" 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. 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 revealed that she is Simon Cowell's favourite song-writer at the moment; due to her writing songs for Leona Lewis and Susan Boyle. Sandè 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." 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 is set to be released in October 2011,[dated info] a week before the album is released. The pair also performed the song live on The X Factor results show. 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" entered at number-one. On 26 November, Sandé performed at the LG ARENA in Birmingham for BRMB 2011. On December 15, 2011, she was named as the Brit Awards Critics' Choice for 2012.