Adele

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins MBE, born May 5, 1988, in Tottenham, North London, is one of the best-selling music artists in the history of recorded music and the defining ballad singer of her generation, whose albums have broken global commercial records while earning unanimous critical acclaim for the depth, emotional honesty, and raw vocal power of her work. Raised by her single mother Penny in Tottenham and later in Brixton, London, Adele grew up loving soul music — Mary J. Blige, Beyonce, and Etta James — and studied at the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon alongside future stars Amy Winehouse and Leona Lewis. Her debut album 19 (2008) announced a powerful new voice in British soul. But it was 21 (2011), an album written almost entirely in the aftermath of a devastating relationship, that transformed her into a global phenomenon: Rolling in the Deep became one of the best-selling singles in history, Someone Like You made public weeping acceptable worldwide, and the album spent over twenty consecutive weeks at number one in the United States — a record not seen since Michael Jackson — winning six Grammy Awards including Album and Record of the Year. 25 (2015) broke the record for first-week album sales in the United States. 30 (2021), written in the aftermath of her divorce and single parenthood experience, became the best-selling album of 2021 worldwide and produced the global number-one single Easy On Me. Her concerts routinely sell out in seconds. She is one of only five artists in history to have won the Grammy Award for Album, Record, and Song of the Year in the same ceremony — and the only artist to have done this three separate times.