Emelie Sande is a Scottish singer/songwriter who first became prominent after featuring on the track “Diamond Rings” by the rapper Chipmunk in 2009 and was her first top ten single on the UK Singles Chart. Initially, born in Sunderland to a Zambian father and English mother, Sande wrote her first song at the age of 11 called “Tomorrow Starts Again” for her primary school talent show and credits this as being the first time she thought about being a songwriter.

By age 15 she was invited by radio station Choice FM in London to take part in their “Rapology” competition and was also asked to perform at MTV’S Camden studios to sing gospel music. Although her dream was to write and perform music she still wanted to go onto university as study medicine, so she turned down a deal with Telstar at the age of 16. Education was important to her, because, if her music career failed, she knew she would have something to fall back on. After finishing her studies on the five-year MBChB course, Sande left with a degree in neuroscience.

After working with Naughty Boy to feature on Chipmunks track Sande signed a record deal 2010 then another deal with EM1 Record in early 2011. She also scored another top ten hit after collaborating with Wiley on his comeback single “Never Be Your Woman”. Her first single, “Heaven” from debut album “Our version of Events” received positive reviews from blogs and she scored her first number one single on the UK Singles Chart with “Read All About It”. All the songs on the album were written by her and her sound is distinctive and classically powerful, with a retro-futuristic, soul-sounding pop. Sande has since gone on to win two Brit Awards in 2013 (Best British Female and Best British Album) and also won two “Ivor Novello Awards”.

Written by Candice Eastman