Adele Laurie Blue Adkins born May 5, 1988 in Enfield, North London, known professionally as Adele, is an English jazz singer. She is the first recipient of the Brit Awards Critics' Choice, which was given to artists who, at the time, had yet to release an album. Adele has also been hailed by the British press as "the new Amy Winehouse" .

She debuted at number one with her debut album 19 in the UK album chart and has since then been certificated platinum with sales over 300,000 copies. Adele's first public singing performance was in a school presentation where she sang "Rise" by Gabrielle. To make her look like the singer, her mother made an eye patch with sequins, which she said was embarrassing

Career

Adele graduated from The BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon in May 2006, where she was a classmate of Leona Lewis and Jessie Adele credits the school with nurturing her talent.  In school, she was more interested in going into A&R, and hoped to launch other people's careers.  Four months later, she published two songs on the fourth issue of the online arts publication PlatformsMagazine.com. She had recorded a three-song demo for a class project and gave it to a friend who posted it on Myspace where it became very successful and led to a phone call from music label XL Recordings. She doubted if the offer was real because the only record company she knew was Virgin Records, and she took a friend with her to the meeting.

Nick Huggett at XL recommended Adele to manager Jonathan Dickins at September Management and in June 2006 Dickins became her official representative. September was managing Jamie T at the time and this proved a major attraction for Adele who was a big fan of the British singer-songwriter. Huggett then signed Adele to XL in September 2006. Adele provided vocals for Jack Peñate's song, "My Yvonne", from his debut album. Adele's breakthrough song, "Hometown Glory", was released in October 2007. Adele supported Will Young at the 2007 MENCAP Little Noise Sessions, a charity concert at London's Union Chapel. In 2008 she was the headliner and performed a stripped down acoustic and was supported by Damien Rice. She became the first recipient of the BRIT Awards Critics' Choice and was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2008 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2008.

Artistry and influence

Adele's voice is categorized as contralto. Initially, critics suggested that her vocals were more developed and intriguing than her songwriting, a sentiment that Adele agreed with. Adele's first album is of the soul genre, with lyrics describing heartbreak and relationship. Her success occurred simultaneously with several other British female soul singers, with the British press dubbing her a new Amy Winehouse. This was described as a third British Musical Invasion of the US. However, Adele called the comparisons between her and other female soul singers lazy, noting "we're a gender, not a genre". By the beginning of 2009 listeners and critics started to describe Adele as unique. AllMusic wrote that "Adele is simply too magical to compare her to anyone." American singer Beyoncé Knowles cited Adele as one of the influences for her fourth album.