Emeli Sandé

Emeli Sandé rose to prominence through guest appearances that put her voice on two UK top-ten singles before her own recording career took off. Born Adele Emily Sandé on 10 March 1987 in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, she was raised in Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Working as a singer and songwriter, she first reached a wider public on Chipmunk's 2009 single “Diamond Rings”, followed by Wiley's “Never Be Your Woman” in 2010.

Her first solo single, “Heaven”, arrived in August 2011. That year she joined Professor Green on “Read All About It”, a single that reached the top of both the UK and Irish singles charts. Sandé later returned to the top of both charts with Labrinth on 2012's “Beneath Your Beautiful”. Her songwriting credits also include work for artists including Cher Lloyd, Alicia Keys, Tinie Tempah, Rihanna and Leona Lewis.

Sandé received the Brit Awards' Critics' Choice Award in 2012, the year she released her debut studio album, Our Version of Events. The album spent ten non-consecutive weeks at number one on the UK albums chart and sold one million copies in the UK, making it the country's best-selling album of 2012. She also performed at both the opening and closing ceremonies of the London Olympics that year. At the 2013 Brit Awards, she won Best British Female Solo Artist and British Album of the Year.

Her second studio album, Long Live the Angels, was released in 2016 and debuted at number two on the UK albums chart. In 2017, Sandé won the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist again, bringing her Brit Award total to four. In 2018, she provided the singing voice of Thethuthinnang in the miniseries Watership Down.