Adele
Biography
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins MBE, known as Adele, is an English singer-songwriter born on 5 May 1988 in London.
After graduating from the BRIT School in 2006, she signed with XL Recordings. Her debut album, 19 (2008), includes the singles Chasing Pavements and Make You Feel My Love, and earned her the Brit Award for Rising Star and the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Her second album, 21 (2011), became the best-selling album of the 21st century with over 31 million copies sold; it was certified 17× platinum in the UK and diamond in the US, where it topped the Billboard 200 for 24 weeks. The singles Rolling in the Deep, Someone Like You and Set Fire to the Rain simultaneously reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. The album won six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, and the Brit Award for British Album of the Year.
In 2012 she performed Skyfall, the James Bond theme, which won the Oscar and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song. Her third album, 25 (2015), broke sales records in its first week and was certified diamond in the US; the single Hello was the first to sell over one million digital copies in a week in the US. The album earned her five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
Her fourth album, 30 (2021), led by the single Easy on Me, was the world’s best-selling album that year and won the Brit Award for British Album of the Year in 2022.
Adele is one of the best-selling music artists worldwide, with over 120 million records sold. She has won sixteen Grammy Awards and twelve Brit Awards. Billboard named her Artist of the Year in 2011, 2012 and 2016. She was named Songwriter of the Year at the Ivor Novello Awards in 2012 and 2016. Time included her among the world’s most influential people in 2012, 2016 and 2022. She was appointed MBE in 2013 for services to music.