Emeli Sandé

Born in Sunderland, England, and raised in Alford, in Scotland’s Aberdeenshire, Emeli Sandé developed a songwriting style that sits between contemporary R&B, soul, gospel and pop, driven by a wide-ranging voice and a marked taste for piano melodies. Before launching her solo career, she established herself on the British pop and urban scene as a writer and composer, notably alongside Naughty Boy, and through collaborations with Chipmunk, Wiley and Professor Green, appearing on several tracks in the late 2000s and early 2010s. This period set the stage for the release of the single "Heaven" in 2011 and the album Our Version of Events in 2012, where Sandé asserted a repertoire mixing soul ballads, orchestral pop and gospel motifs. She continued with Long Live the Angels (2016), a more introspective record, Real Life (2019), which further broadened her range between modern soul and rhythmic pop, and then Let’s Say for Instance (2022) and How Were We to Know (2023). Emeli Sandé also took part in the opening and closing ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympics, while maintaining a steady output of writing and live performances across the UK, Europe and international circuits.