Emeli Sande
Emeli Sande
Adele Emily Sandé, better known as Emeli Sandé, is a 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 was another top ten hit. In 2012, she received the Brit Awards Critics' Choice Award...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionR&B Singer
Date of Birth10 March 1987
CitySunderland, England
We started very slow in America. It was small acoustic shows. We played places like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago and everywhere there has been a great reaction. It has been really lovely. They listen to the lyrics and the melody over there and the reaction has been fantastic.
Because they're my stories, they're my version of events of the past three years. But I really hope people can hear their own stories within the songs and they can become our version of events.
'Clown' was written when I couldn't find anyone who believed in me as an artist. Maybe those labels will think twice next time a young songwriter comes along.
Just thinking of all the things I'd done getting there and everything I've sacrificed to do so. But what's happening now makes it worth it.
The focus is on singer/songwriters now rather than huge shows. I mean, of course there's always a place for that too.
Melody is the first thing that comes to me when I'm songwriting. I learned piano classically first, and then I went into soul, and so melody has always been the first. It's so important.
I wasn't intentionally trying to create my own path or be original, it was just I needed to say certain things and I needed to express myself, and that's how it came out.
Songwriting is my main thing. I know that I'll do that for the rest of my life.
I was inspired by people like Joni Mitchell and Carole King and Stevie and "Storytellers." People that could really change the world with their lyric, no matter who sung the song, they had still been the source of that message. So that's what I really aim for.
I don't know if I was as ambitious as to change the world, but I do feel like - the reason why I called the album "Our Version of Events" was that I feel a lot of people are not represented in pop music and popular culture.
I wanted to find a way to speak for people. It was important for me, because so many people spoke for me when I was a kid and made me feel less invisible, and I wanted kids or whoever is listening to my music not to feel so voiceless.
People that come to my shows are definitely people that feel outsiders. They feel like I don't feel sexy, I don't feel like - I can't go out every night on Friday and I can't connect to that, and I feel so much pressure to do that.
Sometimes you feel like a very small drop in this huge ocean.
The focus is on singer/songwriters now rather than huge shows. I mean, of course there's always a place for that too.