Hello, it's... Emeli Sande, this generation's only performer able to rival Adele as a powerhouse, tear-jerking force of nature. The Scottish vocalist (born, funny enough, Adele Emily Sande) is back for your pillow-sopping nights on her much-anticipated "Long Live the Angels", a rumination on new versions of events, particularly the dissolving of a decade-long relationship that ended in divorce in 2014. Among the best albums of 2016, Sande's triumphant catharsis pushes through the pain with spirited, choir-lifted credos of faith and love-led empowerment.
In this revealing interview with Sande, the 29-year-old opened up about the gay fans who helped her realize she needed a break, discovering President Obama's daughters listen to her music and how Mariah Carey helped her feel less alone.
How do your outsider feelings, which you've acknowledged you felt as someone growing up biracial, play into the music you write?
I feel like that's why I give music 100 percent of myself, because it's always been this confidante in my life where I've found my own identity. Growing up feeling pretty different in Scotland, I started to identify with soul music and black music, and that's the reason why I've always put everything into my music. It's never been something that I wanted to be too shiny. Like, I've never faked it. Having that kind of release and anchor in my life, it's always just made me want to be 100 percent honest in what I'm doing, so hopefully that speaks through the music.
I remember how alone I felt and what comfort music was to me, and that was only through artists who were telling the truth and being so real. So, that's how I wanted my career to be. Even if things are difficult to speak about or process, it's important to me to keep doing it as is, so if people are like me when I was younger, they have someone who is telling the truth and making them feel not so alone.
For me, Mariah Carey's "Butterfly" album made me feel that way. I identified with a song on that album, "Outside". For you, what was...
(laughs) Me too! I love that album, equally. It's so funny you mention that song, too, because it was one of my favorites. When she speaks in interviews about how she felt being mixed race and how certain songs were based on that - and even though this was someone I'd never met, and we were on different ends of the world - I felt comforted by that.
Have you been able to share that with Mariah?
I have never been able to speak to her about the music, but I met her a couple of times. I met her on "American Idol" once and she said, "You're the girl who's writing all those songs!" and I'm like, "Mariah Carey knows that I write songs!" (laughs) I was completely starstruck. And I remember "Hero". I remember that song she did on the "Rainbow" album, "Can't Take That Way". I would love one day to meet her properly and tell her how much her music influenced me.
Do you call yourself a "lamb" like the rest of her hardcore fans?
I didn't even know that's what we were called, but yeah!
I'm envisioning a collaboration.
That would be a dream.
(excerpt from PrideSource)
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