Sade Adu - Diamond Life

Born Helen Folasade Adu on 16 January 1959 in Ibadan, Nigeria, her father, Adebisi Adu, was a Nigerian-born economics professor. Her mother, Anne, was a British nurse. Her parents met while Adebisi Adu was a graduate student at the London School of Economics. After marrying and having a son, the couple moved to Ibadan, where Adu had landed a teaching job. Sade--a diminutive of Folasade--was born shortly after their arrival in Nigeria.


By the time Sade was four, her parents had separated, and, in 1963, she moved with her mother and brother back to England. They lived with Sade's grandparents while her mother finished nursing school, after which they moved out on their own. The family eventually settled in a working-class town called Holland-on-Sea.

At 17, Sade left for London to study fashion and design at St. Martin's College of Art in the city's West End. Sade's entry into the music world was by chance. A popular London funk group called Pride was looking for a backup singer. She auditioned for the spot and was initially rejected, but when nobody better showed up over the next few weeks, Sade was given the job.

As a backup singer, Sade quickly developed a following of her own, and at the suggestion of Pride's manager, she and a few other members of the band worked up a set of songs to perform during Pride's between- set breaks, with Sade taking center stage. Sade and Pride saxophonist Stuart Mathewman teamed up to write several catchy songs for the splinter group, and, before long, the newly-dubbed band Sade was overshadowing Pride.

Her solo performances of the song "Smooth Operator" attracted the attention of record companies and in 1983, she signed a solo deal with Epic Records taking three members of the band, Stuart Matthewman, Andrew Hale and Paul Denman, with her. Sade and her band produced the first of a string of hit albums. Their debut album Diamond Life was in 1984. She is the most successful solo female artist in British history, having sold over 110 million albums worldwide

Although the gaps between Sade's new projects seem to be widening, her voice--both as a singer and songwriter--remains a distinctive one in the pop music industry. Until a new star emerges who can out-cool Sade, her periodic reappearances are likely to be greeted with enthusiasm by her millions of fans, loyalists of the laid-back. Here is Diamond Life.........Enjoy!