Adele

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, (born 5 May 1988), is a Grammy Award-Winning English soul, jazz, singer-songwriter from Enfield, North London. Her debut album, 19, was released in January 2008 and entered the UK album chart at #1 where it was certified Platinum. The album included the hugely popular song, Chasing Pavements.

Adele won two Grammy Awards in February 2009 for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Her second album, 21, was released on January 24th 2011 in the UK where it has since been certified six-times Platinum for shipments in excess of 1,800,000 copies. The album was released in the US and Canada on Tuesday February 22nd 2011. The album has spawned two singles thus far including lead single Rolling in the Deep (which becomes her 1st million-selling digital hit in the US) and Someone Like You (her first No1 single in the UK). 21 has sold over 3.2 million copies worldwide so far.

Adele graduated from BRIT School in Croydon in May 2006, where she was classmates with Leona Lewis. Adele credits the school with nurturing her talent. In school, she was more interested in going into A&R, and hoped to launch other people’s careers. Four months later, she published two songs on the fourth issue of the online arts publication PlatformsMagazine.com. She had recorded a three-song demo for a class project and gave it to a friend who posted it on Myspace where it became very successful and led to a phone call from music label XL Recordings. She doubted if the offer was real because the only record company she knew was Virgin Records, and she took a friend with her to the meeting. Nick Huggett at XL Recordings recommended Adele to manager Jonathan Dickins at September Management and in June 2006 Dickins became her official representative. September was managing Jamie T at the time and this proved a major attraction for Adele who was a big fan of the English singer-songwriter. Huggett then signed Adele to XL Recordings in September 2006.

Adele’s breakthrough song, Hometown Glory, was released in October 2007. Adele provided vocals for Jack Peñate’s song, My Yvonne, from his debut album. Adele became the first recipient of the BRIT Awards Critics’ Choice and was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2008 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2008. She released her second single Chasing Pavements on 14 January 2008, two weeks ahead of her debut album, 19. Chasing Pavements reached number two on the UK Chart, and stayed there for four weeks, finally remaining in the Top 40 14 weeks after its release. The album itself entered the British charts at number one. The Times Encyclopedia of Modern Music would name 19 an “essential” Blue Eyed Soul recording.