Emeli Sandé talks ahead of V Festival
Chart star Emeli Sandé will be returning to V to appear fourth on the bill – after dazzling crowds during an appearance soon after her smash hit debut, Our Version of Events.
Emeli returned last year with her second record, Long Live The Angels, which went to number two on the UK album chart. The record was influenced by Emeli’s Zambian background and featured her father and cousins, who were named The Serenje Choir, after the town of Serenje. It followed a period of heartache for Emeli, who had married her long-term boyfriend after a seven-year romance, only for their relationship to end in divorce a year later.
The star grew up listening to music and one of her earliest memories was of hearing Yazz with her mum. She is an avowed Stevie Wonder fan and lists Sir Duke was one of her favourite songs. She was thrilled to win three Brit Awards and two Ivor Novello Awards.
Music was always Emeli’s dream, though she didn’t imagine she’d make it as a singer. So, instead, she trained to be a doctor. She spent four years in neuroscience, earning a BSc, before deciding to leave medical school so that she could pursue music.
Emeli lists some of her heroes as Nina Simone, Jacqueline du Pré, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X and Joni Mitchell and she also has her own alter-ego – a rapper whose rap name is Ngosa.
She spent many years working as a songwriter with the Watford-born music producer/writer Naughty Boy, whose credits included Ms Dynamite and Bashy.
They formed a formidable team and wrote for Alesha Dixon, Chipmunk, Professor Green, Devlin, Preeya Kalidas, Cheryl Cole, and Tinie Tempah. Those credits led to Sandé signing a record deal with Virgin Records and EMI Records.
Despite her success, Emeli still feels uncomfortable around famous people and froze when she met V headliner Jay Z – with whom she’ll feature at Weston Park tomorrow.
She was delighted to return with last year’s Long Live The Angels after writing hundreds of songs to choose from.
Emeli had travelled so much following the success of Version of Events and had put her personal life on hold so she was glad to be creative. She didn’t feel any external pressure when she was writing it,. And she was keen not to wash her dirty linen in public – avoiding writing directly about her failed marriage.