I remember, as everyone does, Emily Sande speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. She sang Abide With Me so seriously and yet so joyfully that it seemed as if some elemental life force was trying to explode. from her. She returned to the closing ceremony with Read All About It, one of her many hit singles.
“It was all a dream,” she says, looking back. We are in her house, which is in the heart of East London, but still feels somehow calm and almost a villa, as if she brought the spirit of rural Scotland, where she grew up, with her. “I don’t think I was even scheduled to take part in the opening and closing ceremonies, just two different teams asked me.
She was already doing well – she had signed with Virgin and released her first solo single, Heaven, in August 2011 – but she also seemed to encapsulate the spirit of the times: a pure and justified belief that one can come from nothing and become the greatest thing in the world, just being brilliant.
In real life, a lot of hard work had gone into her accomplishments: she had spent three years at Glasgow Medical School writing songs in lectures, while other people counted the number of cells in their bodies. This convinced her to move to London and pursue a career in music: the fact that everyone else is “so 100% focused on medicine. They were so devoted and passionate that it made me envious. Because I was passionate too, but not in medicine.
Her first break came on the worst night of her life (so far): her managers had just told her they didn’t know what to do with her anymore and thought it might not work out. She and her mother were sending CDs to 1Xtra, and she had gone to a 21-year-old rapology competition in Croydon.
“I was sitting there in front of the piano and singing a song by Nina Simone in a rap show. Nobody cared. But Naughty Boy was there, and he said, “I really thought you were singing directly to me.” This collaboration with the producer and the DJ, who would later find his way into I’m a Celebrity … Get me out of here . !! led her to perform the vocals of Chipmunk’s Diamond Rings and then become global it was only a matter of time.
And yet, whatever he was looking for was definitely not glory. She grew up in Aberdeenshire, “strangely shy,” she says. “My voice was the first thing I felt I could communicate with. It was just very difficult for me to speak, so singing was like freedom for me; freedom from this hypersensitive, overly shy child who is suddenly released in a few minutes. It was also such a physical release. The music gave me an identity. ”
She was not the only black child in her school (until her sister started, two years later) – her father from Zambia, who was a teacher, “she said very clearly:” We are the only black family in the village. You have to represent not only the colored people, but also your younger sister.
My father’s aunt fell into a singing trance, absorbed in the music. I was like this: if I sang, I wouldn’t stop
She carefully chooses her words, describing this rather distant childhood of the 90s. “Growing up, racism has always been around, but just as a threat; that you can’t really get into a conflict or fight because you know where it’s going to go. What else can you say after someone tells you something racist? Even if you have a better argument, you can’t answer that much. “
This feeling of having to keep his head down, combined with a strong family work ethic – “My mother comes from a working class family in Cumbria and although they were from so many different countries, what they had in common was that you had to use your brain you are to go further in life ”- she ended with the kind of impeccable academic success, with which you can not but be a doctor. It was just embarrassing that her voice had other ideas. “My father had an aunt who fell into these singing trances. She channeled a spirit of music. And he said I was like that: if I sing, I won’t stop. “
In the past, she spoke of her faith, the different times when she was weaker or stronger, and how this affected her ability to compose and perform – but not in relation to any official religion. “My mother’s parents were Catholics, and my father’s parents were obviously very Christian. My friends were Baha’is when I grew up, and they talked about researching as many religions as possible to really get an idea of what you actually believe in.
“Naughty Boy was a Muslim then, and we were going to discuss a lot of things. I don’t even know what my name would be now, but I definitely believe in God. Especially when I’m making music; I always have the feeling that something more is happening there than me. You can feel it when you hear a gospel choir sing, or when you listen to Bach, there is this purity in the music that was created for God. ”
So, if she was partly directing her spirit, partly avoiding shyness, very little, probably none of her desire came from the desire to succeed. “Success is wonderful,” she says, “but it comes with a lot of strings. You need to promote. You have to give. I entered this industry at 24, now I’m 35. I want to feel better, but to do that, you have to train. ” She isolates herself from the wild glory of fame, in part because “I had such a distinctive appearance on stage, people would really only recognize me when I looked like that. I had the feeling that I could choose whether to be famous or not. I’ve never really felt like a celebrity. In fact, I don’t know so many famous people. I had the feeling that my music was more famous than mine. ”
However, this music was quite well known – her first album, Our Version of Events, was the best-selling in the United Kingdom in 2012 and was huge in the United States. The following year, she attended the Obama-hosted White House Tribute to Carol King, and that period was so formative that it sounded partly Scottish, partly Central Atlantic, even now.
Emily Sande performs Read All About It at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Photo: Johannes Eisele / AFP / Getty Images
“I’ve always seen myself as a black woman,” she says of the time, “but I’ve learned so much about how to be that through music: through people like Lorraine Hill.” But obviously this is American culture, in fact I had no one in Scotland to refer to. So she went to Zambia to meet her grandmother for the first time, “because I thought, ‘God, what am I doing here?’ Why do I dry my natural curl? Why do I look so different from what I would look natural?
She loved him there, “strength, positivity, spirituality – no matter how hard things got, they woke up and thanked God for another day,” but that didn’t give her any caressing answers about her identity. It’s one thing to think, “I’ll come back and finally realize who I am.” But then you get there and you understand: Well, I grew up in the United Kingdom. I am culturally British. I really grew up in Scotland and yes, it was hard to be different, but it was also a beautiful time. This province, this tranquility really impressed my personality. It got to a point where instead of trying to find a box for myself, I was OK just to be who I was. ”
This made her a confusing perspective for the industry she was in: not only her lack of interest in the attributes of success, but also her resistance to being determined by culture, genre, in fact, anything. This is a topic that often arises from managers, labels, A&R people that they do not know where to put it. “I definitely feel that as a woman of a certain age, if you don’t fit in a certain box, it becomes difficult for everyone else. Four years passed before the release of her second album Long Live the Angels, which was her favorite until the upcoming Let’s Say for Instance. “I definitely felt like I said everything I wanted to say.”
We went through the strangest thing we will probably go through. Admitting that we are together is an emotional thing
In 2019, after her third album Real Life, she broke up with Virgin and by the beginning of the pandemic, she “severed ties with the industry.” She is terribly tactful to record executives, but not just as a reflex. “I remember reading an article by Tori Amos, she said, ‘The easiest thing is to start blaming the company – they didn’t let me do what I wanted – but often enough we stop because it’s scary to take risks.’ it was a risk: she was disappointed because the performance became “half of your life, most of what you do is prepare to be on stage. So when that is fixed, you need to redefine yourself. Who am I just like my nephew’s aunt? Have I prioritized the right things? “
Then came the pandemic she saw living with her sister (also a teacher) in Hertfordshire, writing an album that no one expected to write, which no one had to produce (now she signed with the independent label Chrysalis). This is not the album you’d expect – less introspective than her last and as celebratory as anything you’ve ever heard. “It’s just shamelessly heartfelt and strong, and here we are.” Lets do it.
“It was panic,” she recalls now, “because everyone in the world was fighting alone. No one knew where they stood. It felt like a time when I could really fall in love with music again. ” And she fell in love with music again, crying over everything, everywhere. “Even watching some of Coachella’s performances, Arcade Fire made me cry. What they said lyrically was so beautiful. And seeing how emotional they were to return to the stage. We went through the strangest thing that each of us …
Add Comment