Sade performs during Sade and India.Arie in Concert at Jones Beach at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, New York, United States.
Gallery of Sade Adu
2010
Alicia Keys and Sade perform on stage during Keep A Child Alive's 7th annual Black Ball at Hammerstein Ballroom on September 30, 2010 in New York City.
Gallery of Sade Adu
2010
Sade attends the 2010 Keep A Child Alive's Black Ball at the Hammerstein Ballroom on September 30, 2010 in New York City.
Alicia Keys and Sade perform on stage during Keep A Child Alive's 7th annual Black Ball at Hammerstein Ballroom on September 30, 2010 in New York City.
Helen Folasade Adu, known professionally as Sade Adu or simply Sade, is an English singer, songwriter, and actress. She is best known as the lead vocalist of the band Sade.
Background
Ethnicity:
She has Nigerian ancestry on her father’s side and English ancestry on her mother’s side.
Helen Folasade Adu was born on 16 January 1959 in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Her middle name, Folasade, means "honour confers a crown". Her parents are Adebisi Adu, a Nigerian lecturer in economics of Yoruba background, and Anne Hayes, an English district nurse; they met in London, married in 1955, and moved to Nigeria. When Sade was four years old, her parents separated. Anne Hayes then returned to England, taking Sade and older brother Banji with her to live with their grandparents near Colchester, Essex. When Sade was 11 years old, she moved to Holland-on-Sea, Essex, to live with her mother.
Education
After completing her education at Clacton County High School at age 18, she moved to London and studied fashion design at Saint Martin's School of Art.
Around 1980, Sade started singing harmony with a Latin funk group called Arriva. One of the more popular numbers that the group performed was an Adu original co-written with bandmember Ray St. John, "Smooth Operator." The following year, she joined the eight-piece funk band Pride as a background singer. Pride's opening acts often featured members of the band in different combinations. Pride and their off-shoots performed often around London and stirred up record company interest. Initially, the labels wanted to sign only Sade - technically a trio featuring Adu, Stuart Matthewman, and Paul Denman - while the whole of Pride wanted a deal. The members of Pride not involved in the Sade trio eventually told Adu, Matthewman, and Denman to go ahead and sign a deal. Adding keyboardist Andrew Hale, Sade signed to the U.K. division of Epic Records.
The band's debut album, Diamond Life (with overall production by Robin Millar), went Top Ten in the U.K. in late 1984. January 1985 saw the album released on CBS' Portrait label, and by spring, it had gone platinum on the strength of the Top Ten singles "Smooth Operator" and "Hang On to Your Love." The second album, Promise (1985), featured "Never as Good as the First Time" and "The Sweetest Taboo," the latter of which stayed on the U.S. Hot 100 for six months. Sade was so popular that some radio stations reinstated the '70s practice of playing album tracks, adding "Is It a Crime" and "Tar Baby" to their playlists. In 1986, Sade won a Grammy for Best New Artist.
Sade's third album was 1988's Stronger Than Pride, and featured their first number one single on the U.S. R&B chart, "Paradise," as well as "Nothing Can Come Between Us" and "Keep Looking." The fourth Sade album didn't appear for four years: 1992's Love Deluxe continued the unbroken streak of multi-platinum Sade albums, spinning off the hits "No Ordinary Love," "Feel No Pain," and "Pearls.
Matthewman, Denman, and Hale went on to other projects, including the low-key Sweetback, which released a self-titled album in 1996. Matthewman also played a major role in the development of Maxwell's career, providing instrumentation and production work for the R&B singer's first two albums. Sade eventually reconvened to issue Lovers Rock in 2000. The lead single "By Your Side" was a moderate hit, peaking at number 18 on the adult contemporary chart; the following summer, Sade embarked on their first tour in more than a decade and sold out many dates across America. In early 2002, they celebrated the tour's success by releasing a live album and DVD, Lovers Live. They resurfaced in late 2009 with "Soldier of Love," the lead single for the album of the same title, released the following year. In the U.S., Soldier of Love debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart and sold over 500,000 copies during its first week. Another live set, Bring Me Home, followed in 2012.
In March 2018, she (and the reunited band that also bears her name) released the acoustic ballad "Flower of the Universe" for the soundtrack to the Disney film A Wrinkle In Time. About asking Sade to contribute to the album, director Ava DuVernay wrote "I never thought she'd say yes, but asked anyway."
Sade is widely considered a musical influence, and her contributions to music have made her a global figure in popular culture for over two decades. She has been credited as one of the most successful British female artists in history, and her work is listed among the finest in modern jazz history. Her services to music were also commemorated after being awarded the Officer of the Order of the British Empire chivalry honor in 2002.
She stated: "I don’t think I’ve ever really known what romance is. I’m a mixture of being really idealistic and hopeful, and really pessimistic about our future. I’ve always been like that. Because of my age, I’ve been thinking a lot about what we are going to do, how we are going to get out of this mess. I guess on a big scale, I’m a bit of a pessimist when I look at the world economically, where we are at this stage and how unbalanced everything is. But, individually, as far as people are concerned, I’m an optimist, because I believe there’s a lot of good in people. When it comes to trusting people, I have quite good instincts. I’m a bit witchy; witchy woman. [laughs] I think now, I’m less open than I used to be sometimes, because I have to protect myself."
Quotations:
“When I go into the studio, I completely detach. I let my emotions come out.”
“I've made sacrifices. I'm not anti-fashion but I've always had a bit of a punk attitude. That's important, I think. I do my own thing.”
“What could equal the bliss? / The thrill of the first kiss / It'll blow right to you / It's never as good as the first time.”
“There isn't a class structure in Nigeria; there's a tribal structure and prestige as far as money is concerned.”
“I look a lot like my father and his mother.”
“London was a really multi-racial city ... It's incredible how comfortable people are with race there.”
“I don't like looking outrageous.”
“I can't see myself just endlessly singing the same songs over and over again.”
“I am fairly classless because it is very difficult to class someone who comes from a mixed marriage.”
Personality
The New Yorker described Sade's voice as a "grainy contralto full of air that betrays a slight ache but no agony, and values even imperfect dignity over a show of pain", a "deeply English" quality that makes categorizing the artist's voice difficult. Her voice was described by the BBC as "husky and restrained" and compared to singer Billie Holiday. BBC called her songwriting "sufficiently soulful and jazzy yet poppy, funky yet easy listening, to appeal to fans of all those genres.
Physical Characteristics:
Her growth is 5 ft 7 in. She has black hair and dark brown eyes.
Quotes from others about the person
The late singer Aaliyah said that she admired Sade because "she stays true to her style no matter what... she's an amazing artist, an amazing performer... and I absolutely love her."
Kelly Rowland stated she is inspired by Sade Adu and says that "she has a style that's totally her own."
Interests
She loves gardening and horses.
Music & Bands
Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye and Sly Stone.
Connections
Sade married Carlos Pliego in 1989, but they split in 1995. She then started a relationship with Jamaican music producer, Bob Morgan, in the late 1990s, which is when she gave birth to Mickailia. Mickailia came out as a transgender man in 2016. Sade has been in a relationship with former Royal Marine Ian Watts since 2007, and from this relationship she has a stepson, Jack. Morgan has nothing to do with their child and Izaak considers Ian as his father.
Father:
Adebisi Adu
He was a a Nigerian lecturer in economics of Yoruba background.
1986 - Sade - Best New Artist;
1994 - "No Ordinary Love" - Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals;
2002 - Lovers Rock - Best Pop Vocal Album;
2011 - "Soldier of Love" - Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.
1986 - Sade - Best New Artist;
1994 - "No Ordinary Love" - Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals;
2002 - Lovers Rock - Best Pop Vocal Album;
2011 - "Soldier of Love" - Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.
