Emeli Sandé
*Emeli Sandé was born on this date in 1987. She is a Black Scottish singer and songwriter.
Adele Emily Sandé was born in Sunderland, England, to a Zambian father, Joel Sandé, and a white English mother, Diane Sandé-Wood. Having moved from Zambia, her father met her mother at the Polytechnic in Sunderland. The family moved to Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, when she was four. She wrote her first song at 11 for her primary school talent show.
The first song she wrote was called "Tomorrow Starts Again ."Sandé attended school at Alford Academy, where her father was a teacher. Choice FM invited the 15-year-old Sandé to London to participate in their "Rapology" competition and to MTV's Camden studios to sing gospel. It was the first London appearance of her career. Sandé studied medicine at the University of Glasgow but left after obtaining a clinical medicine degree specializing in neuroscience. She stated that education was important because she would have something to fall back on if her music career failed. Frida Kahlo inspired Sandé enough that she has a tattoo of the artist's portrait on her forearm.
After leaving medical school, she got a tattoo representing her strength and bravery. Kahlo was inspirational for Sandé due to the unique story of her battle with polio at a very young age, which inspired her artwork. She knew her decision to pursue music and quit school would require a sense of fearlessness gained through Kahlo's expression of art.
Sandé rose to sing distinction on the 2009 Chipmunk track "Diamond Rings ."In 2010, she was 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. She released her first solo single, "Heaven," in August 2011. Her album Our Version of Events spent ten non-consecutive weeks at number one and became the best-selling album of 2012 in the UK, with over 1 million sales.
In 2012, she performed in the London Olympics Opening and Closing ceremonies. In 2013, at the Brit Awards 2013 ceremony, she won two awards: Best British Female Solo Artist and British Album of the Year. In 2016, she released her second studio album, Long Live the Angels, which debuted at number 2 on the UK album chart. In 2017, she won the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, her fourth win. Sandé was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honors for her services to music.
In January 2012, Sandé confirmed she was engaged to her then-unidentified, long-term boyfriend of seven years. Her boyfriend had requested not to be identified, and Sandé said he is a scientist and not in the music industry. Sandé's fiancé was a marine biologist, Adam Gouraguine when the pair married in his home nation of Montenegro in 2012. Sandé said she would legally take his name but still be known professionally as Emeli Sandé; the couple divorced in 2014. Sandé was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honors for services to music. In 2019, she was appointed the new chancellor of the University of Sunderland. On March 31, 2022, Sandé confirmed that she was in a relationship with an unidentified female classical pianist. On April 2, Sandé tweeted a picture of herself and her partner.
