Emeli Sandé 

Emeli Sande was born March 10, 1987 in Sunderland, England, to a British mother and Zambian father, and raised in Scotland. She studied medicine at Glasgow University, but then left to persue her music career. She would describe her music as R&B, soul, and pop, and her songs also include highly emotional and personal lyrics.

Her music career started in 2008, though she knew she wa interested in msuic from an early age- she was 11 when she wrote her first song for her primary school talent show. She had many inspiriations, noteably Frida Kahlo, who got got a tattoo of after dropping out of medical school to represent bravery and strength. Her career truly started when her sister sent a video of her singing and playing the piano to the BBC for a competition; she won the competition and got a record deal, however she turned this down.

After this, her parents sent a CD of some of her tracks to BBC Radio 1xtra, of which they played a few of those songs, which as a result got her a record deal with Virgin Records in 2010. From here on she featured in many songs with other popular artists, and chose her stage name to be her middle name instead of her first, due to Adele's rising popularity. Her much anticipated debut single was released on 14 August 2011, "Heaven".