Sade

pop singer; songwriter

Personal Information

Born Helen Folasade Adu in 1959 in Ibadan, Nigeria; daughter of Adebisi (an economics professor) and Anne (a nurse) Adu; married Carlos (a filmmaker) Scola, c. 1989 (divorced, c. 1990); children: one, with Bob (a record producer) Morgan.
Education: St. Martin's College of Art, BA, 1979.

Career

Fashion designer, London, 1979-83; backup singer for the funk band Pride, 1982; formed band Sade, 1983; signed with Epic Records, 1984; toured throughout the United States, Europe, and the Far East, 1985--; appeared in the film Absolute Beginners, 1986.

Life's Work

Music writers love Sade's name almost as much as they love her music. Whenever a critic is trying to describe a pop act with a smooth, laid- back, sophisticated, vaguely jazzy sound, her name is immediately invoked. Since taking the pop world by quiet storm in the mid-1980s, dozens of bands have tried to copy the restrained style she and her band have pioneered. Not one has yet managed to replace Sade as the standard for sultriness.

In 1959, Sade (pronounced Shar-day) was born Helen Folasade Adu in Ibadan, Nigeria. Her father, Adebisi Adu, was a Nigerian-born economics professor. Her mother, Anne, was a British nurse. Her parents met while Adebisi Adu was a graduate student at the London School of Economics. After marrying and having a son, the couple moved to Ibadan, where Adu had landed a teaching job. Sade--a diminutive of Folasade--was born shortly after their arrival in Nigeria. Sade's unique and exotic looks--her skin is a fairly light shade of brown, while her features have an unmistakably African quality--represent a striking blend of her parents' ethnic backgrounds.

By the time Sade was four, her parents had separated, and, in 1963, she moved with her mother and brother back to England. They lived with Sade's grandparents while her mother finished nursing school, after which they moved out on their own. The family eventually settled in a working-class town called Holland-on-Sea, where, according to a 1986 People magazine interview, "50 percent of the population was over 65 [years of age]." In a Chicago Tribune interview the same year, Sade described it as "a miserable little seaside town full of go-carts, old ladies, cotton candy, and poodles." Sade and her friends found solace from their dismal surroundings in dance clubs. By her teens, Sade had developed a passion for jazz, funk, and soul music.

At 17, Sade left for London to study fashion and design at St. Martin's College of Art in the city's West End. Upon graduating, she and a friend launched their own business designing men's clothing. The design business never became very profitable, and Sade supplemented her income by taking modeling jobs, which she did not especially enjoy. Meanwhile, she continued to spend as much time as possible at dance clubs, where she felt most at home.

Sade's entry into the music world did not take place through any plan of her own. A popular London funk group called Pride was looking for a backup singer. Her lack of any experience as a vocalist notwithstanding, their manager thought that Sade's stunning looks made her a good candidate. She auditioned for the spot and was initially rejected. When nobody better showed up over the next few weeks, however, Sade was given the job. She continued designing clothes for a living, but music became her main evening hobby.

As a backup singer, Sade quickly developed a following of her own, and at the suggestion of Pride's manager, she and a few other members of the band worked up a set of songs to perform during Pride's between- set breaks, with Sade taking center stage. Sade and Pride saxophonist Stuart Mathewman teamed up to write several catchy songs for the splinter group, and, before long, the newly-dubbed band Sade was overshadowing Pride.

As a band, Sade created a stir almost immediately. Its first break came in 1983, when they were engaged to play a concert at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, sponsored by the glossy British music and fashion magazine The Face. The artsy crowd was captivated by Sade, who was backed only by Mathewman and a small rhythm section. By October of that year, the band, which now included bassist Paul Denman, keyboardist Andrew Hale, and drummer Paul Cooke (later replaced by Dave Early), had signed with Epic. Sade's first single, "Your Love Is King," was released the following February. The Diamond Life album came out just five months later. With one exception, all of the songs on Diamond Life were cowritten by Sade and Mathewman.

Sade quickly became a favorite among trendy artistic types, and Diamond Life soared to the top of the British charts. Fearing that Sade would not go over as well among American listeners, however, Epic did not release the album in the United States until early in 1985. The company need not have worried. On the strength of the single "Smooth Operator," the album became a huge hit there as well. Diamond Life sold six million copies worldwide by the end of 1985, becoming the best selling album ever by a British female singer. It won the British Phonographic Institute's Best Album prize, and Sade received the Grammy for Best New Artist.

Sade spent much of 1985 touring to promote Diamond Life and recording the follow-up album, which was released late in the year. Like its predecessor, Promise carved a quick path up the charts in both Britain and the United States, fueled by its Top 5 single "Sweetest Taboo." And like those on the band's debut album, the new songs were characterized by Sade's subtle, restrained crooning over smoky, swirling soul/jazz riffs. For eight months in 1986, the band toured across the United States and Europe. As the tour wound down, Sade was surrounded by rumors that she was depressed about a busted love affair, hooked on drugs, having a nervous breakdown, or beset by some combination of the three. Her ongoing aversion to public scrutiny only gave the rumors more room in which to perpetuate themselves.

Exhausted from the tour and put off by the unwanted attention, Sade withdrew from the limelight for a while before returning with a new album, 1988's Stronger Than Pride. Like Sade's first two albums, Stronger Than Pride was an instant hit, attaining platinum status after a mere two weeks on the charts. After a huge world tour that included stops in Japan and Australia, and full-blown stadium concerts in the United States, Sade was ready drop out of sight again, this time for an even longer period. She moved to Spain and suffered through an unhappy one-year marriage to documentary filmmaker Carlos Scola.

After the breakup of her marriage, Sade moved back to London. There she bought an old house, gutted it almost entirely, and built a fully- equipped recording studio in the basement. She then reassembled the band and began work on their next album, Love Deluxe, released in 1992. In spite of Sade's extended absence from the public eye, her fans had not forgotten her. The album sold well, remaining on the Billboard charts for 90 weeks and spawning another international tour of sold out concerts in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The featured single, "No Ordinary Love," earned the Grammy for Best R&B Duo or Group Performance and was featured prominently in the hit film Indecent Proposal.

In 1995, Sade took another career break, this time to have a baby with partner Bob Morgan, a record producer. While she concentrated on parenthood at home in Montego Bay, Jamaica, the rest of the band, working under the name "Sweetback," released a self-titled album the following year. Meanwhile, Sade concentrated her energies on repackaging her decade's worth of material into new forms. She released two such products in 1996: a recording called The Best of Sade and Sade Interactive, a multimedia CD-ROM that includes songs, videos, photographs, band biographies, and other information.

Although the gaps between Sade's new projects seem to be widening, her voice--both as a singer and songwriter--remains a distinctive one in the pop music industry. Until a new star emerges who can out-cool Sade, her periodic reappearances are likely to be greeted with enthusiasm by her millions of fans, loyalists of the laid-back.

Awards

British Phonographic Institute prize for Best Album, 1985; Grammy Awards, Best New Artist, 1986, and Best R&B Duo or Group Performance for "No Ordinary Love," 1994.

Works

Selective Discography

• Albums Diamond Life (includes "Your Love Is King" and "Smooth Operator"), Epic, 1984.
• Promise (includes "Sweetest Taboo"), Epic, 1985.
• Stronger Than Pride, Epic, 1988.
• Love Deluxe (includes "No Ordinary Love") Epic, 1992.
• The Best of Sade, Epic, 1996.
• CD-ROM Sade Interactive, OmniMedia, 1996.

Further Reading

Sources

• Book Bego, Mark, Sade!, Paperjacks, 1986.

Periodicals

• Ebony, May 1986, p. 155; April 1993, p. 124-127.
• Essence, April 1986, pp. 86-88.
• Jet, November 7, 1988, p. 30-32.
• New York Daily News, September 22, 1996, p. 35.
• People, February 3, 1986, pp. 46-47.
• Rolling Stone, May 23, 1985, pp. 48-49.
• Additional information for this profile was obtained from Epic Records publicity materials.

— Robert R. Jacobson

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For The Record...

Born Helen Folasade Adu on January 16, 1959, in Ibadan, Nigeria; raised in Clacton, Essex, England; daughter of Adebisi (an economics professor) and Anne (a nurse) Adu; married Carlos Scola (a filmmaker), c. 1990; divorced, 1991; children: daughter, with Bob Morgan (a record producer), 1996. Education: Bachelor of arts degree from St. Martin’s College of Art, London, 1979. Men’s fashion designer, stylist, and model, c. 1979-82; singer, songwriter, 1982-; backup singer for Pride, c. 1982; solo performer, 1983-; signed with Epic Records, released debut album, Diamond Life, 1984; appeared in film Absolute Beginners, 1986; went on third and most lengthy hiatus, 1992-2000; returned with Lovers Rock, 2000. Awards: Grammy Awards, Best New Artist, 1986, and Best R&B Performance By a Duo or Group for “No Ordinary Love,” 1994; Order of the British Empire (OBE) honors, 2002; American Music Award, Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist, 2002; Grammy Award, Best Pop Vocal Album for Lovers Rock, 2002. Addresses: Record company—Epic Records, 550 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022-3211.

Singer, Songwriter

"Sade’s music… is so hot because it sounds so cool," declared critic Cathleen McGuigan in Newsweek. The Nigerian-born British singer rose rapidly to prominence with her first two albums, Diamond Life and Promise; both have gone multiplatinum. Her sound is "one that has definite jazz overtones but is mixed with a pop flavor and a hint of passion," according to Walter Leavy in Ebony, and it has captured the imagination of music fans and reviewers alike. Sade is responsible for the hit singles "Smooth Operator" and "The Sweetest Taboo," and she has won three Grammy Awards, including one for Best Pop Vocal Album for Lovers Rock in 2002.

Sade was born Helen Folasade Adu in Ibadan, Nigeria, to a British mother and Nigerian father. Her stage name, a shortened form of her middle name, was adopted almost immediately because her Nigerian neighbors refused to call her by the English name Helen. Sade remained in Nigeria until she was four years old, when her parents separated and her mother took Sade and her older brother to England. The family stayed with Sade’s grandparents in a small village in Essex, then moved to Holland-on-Sea when Sade’s mother remarried. Despite the fact that the young girl and her brother were the only children of black descent in the area, and Sade was sometimes the target of racial slurs, she had a comfortable circle of friends with whom she went dancing. As a teenager, however, she had no professional musical aspirations. She told a Washington Post interviewer: "Obviously I’ve stood in front of the mirror with a hairbrush just like anyone. But that was the extent of it." Sade and her friends enjoyed funk and soul music, and she particularly admired the work of Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson, and the late Marvin Gaye. She also liked singing along with her mother’s record collection, which included the albums of Frank Sinatra and Dinah Washington.

By the time she was 17, Sade had discovered a desire to become a fashion designer. When she graduated from high school she enrolled in St. Martin’s College of Art in London. She worked her way through school by waitressing and serving as a bicycle messenger, but she still found time to enjoy dancing in the London nightclubs. When Sade obtained her degree, she and another woman tried to keep a men’s fashion designing business afloat, but it was difficult, as she explained to the Washington Post "You can’t make things at a reasonable cost… Everything was economic. It stunted any creativity, and I ended up not enjoying it." Another thing Sade did not enjoy was the modeling work she did at that time to help support herself. Though since her emergence on the music scene she has been lauded almost as much for her sleek, slim, elegant look as for her songs, she confided to a reporter for the Toronto Globe and Mail: "I’m quite anti-fashion in a sense. I hate it when everyone starts wearing the same clothes simply because that’s what’s supposed to be in this year."

Stalled as Backup Singer
During the early 1980s, when Sade had given up on modeling in disgust, a friend persuaded her to try out as a backup singer for a group specializing in jazz and funk called Pride. Thinking that singing would be a pleasant hobby, she auditioned, and though she was rejected at first, she was called back when no one more suitable could be found. Pride never earned a recording contract, but did gain a following in the London nightclubs, a following that grew when Sade began to team up with fellow Pride member and saxophone player Stuart Matthewman to write songs. The two performed their creations in special sets aside from the rest of Pride, and these sets began to win Sade fans of her own. When Pride disbanded, the group’s manager, Lee Barrett, became Sade’s manager, and Sade and Matthewman recruited backup musicians.

Sade was signed by Epic Records in 1983. Her first album, Diamond Life, met with acclaim in England, and the first hit from it was "Your Love is King." But while a dance tune from Diamond Life, "Hang On to Your Love," received some play in New York City discos, CBS/Portrait Records, who held Sade’s contract in the United States, did not release the album until 1985 because they feared it would not have the same popular appeal that it did in England. When Diamond Life was released in America, it shot up the charts quickly, first propelled by "Smooth Operator," then by "Your Love is King." Sade’s debut album also sold well in Europe, and with six million copies of Diamond Life sold worldwide, she had become an international star by the end of 1985.

Had a Hit with "The Sweetest Taboo"
It was at about this time that Sade released her second album, Promise. When Diamond Life was beginning to fade from the charts, Promise began to climb them. The biggest hit from the album was what Stephen Holden called a "delicately spicy love ballad," "The Sweetest Taboo," but other songs, such as "Maureen" and "Never as Good as the First Time," were successful as well. But while many critics were singing Sade’s praises and lauding her cool, understated style, other reviewers were sounding notes of dissent. McGuigan pointed out that Sade’s work is "very similar in feeling and pace. Perhaps too similar: for all the dark, lush glamour of the sound, Sade has yet to show a wide range in style or voice." And Leavy agreed that "questions about her musical ability do pop up from time to time." But Barry Walters argued in the Village Voice that Sade’s method of "never letting go, simmering but never boiling" when interpreting her songs is what makes her distinct from the other stars of popular music. Her style continues to attract fans: in 198 Sade’s third album, Stronger Than Pride, generated the hit single "Nothing Can Come Between Us."

During what was her longest break from music yet, the rumors of events in Sade’s personal life multiplied; they were generally about depression, divorce, drugs, and her physical state. Then, there was a problem with the Jamaican authorities that served as fodder for the tabloid press: Sade failed to pull over when signaled by Jamaican police, and continued to lead them on a highspeed chase which ended in her cursing the police, resisting arrest, and then fleeing the country before her court date because of a mysterious illness her daughter had. Sade pled not guilty and contends that the car, with her mother and daughter as passengers, was stationary at the time of the supposed "chase," and that the authorities just wanted a bribe that she would not give. She also says they were angered when she would not sign a document that said she had committed the offense. There remains an outstanding arrest warrant in Jamaica, should Sade return.

Success Followed Extended Break
After an eight-year break, Sade returned in 2000 with a new album for the new millennium called Lovers Rock. She followed the popularly successful release, which debuted on the Billboard charts at number three, with her first tour in over a decade, and then released the live album Lovers Live in 2002. The debut single from Lovers Rock, "By Your Side," was a hit with audiences. Lovers Rock earned her a Grammy Award and an American Music Award in 2002 and nominations for a BRIT Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, Block-buster Entertainment Award for Favorite Female Artist, Soul Train Lady of Soul Award for Best R&B Solo Album, and a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

When asked to explain her extended hiatus, Sade replied to Essence’s Lonnae Parker, "I just feel, for me as a person, it is essential to be a part of the world, to actually be with family and friends. Not to be removed from the essential stuff of life." She also pointed out that she never intended to be a singer or wanted fame. "I think you should make an album only when you’ve got something to say. I don’t have to make an album every year to stay in the limelight or to fulfill other people’s expectations of me," she told Harper’s Bazaar’s William Shaw. Sade does not like to be away from her home in England and her daughter and would opt to be anonymous as a singer-songwriter. Her main ambition, in fact, has nothing to do with her career, but with being a good mother.

Sade is still "effortlessly elegant." She not only has captured audiences for nearly 20 years with her jazzy songwriting and smoky voice, but has remained the classic anti-diva of chic. She has popularized hoop earrings and pulled-back hair—including the sleek ponytail—and established her trademark "next to naked" freckled skin, fire-engine red lips, and perfectly sculpted eyebrows. As the ARTISTDirect website aptly summed up: "Her work embodies timeless qualities of elegance, understatement, taste and passion, while remaining completely contemporary in sound and attitude."

Selected discography
Diamond Life, Portrait, 1985.
Promise, Portrait, 1985.
Stronger Than Pride, Portrait, 1988.
Love Deluxe, Epic, 1992.
The Best of Sade, Sony, 1994.
Lovers Rock, Epic, 2000.
Lovers Live, Sony, 2002.

Sources
Books
The Complete Marquis Who’s Who, Marquis Who’s Who, 2001.

Periodicals
Down Beat, August 1985.
Ebony, May 1986.
Entertainment Weekly, March 28, 1997, p. 15.
Essence, March 2001, pp. 42, 48a.
Harper’s Bazaar, January 2001, p. 68.
Newsweek, March 25, 1985.
New York Times, November 27, 1985.
People, February 3, 1986; July 6, 1998, p. 79.
Rolling Stone, April 25, 1985; May 8, 1986.
Village Voice, December 31, 1985.
Washington Post, December 12, 1985.

Online
All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (April 1, 2002).
ARTISTDirect, http://imusic.artistdirect.com (April 3, 2002).
Biography Resource Center, Gale Group, http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (April 1, 2002).
MTV.com, http://www.mtv.com (April 1, 2002).
Recording Industry Association of America, http://www.riaa.org (April 1, 2002).
Rock on the Net, http://www.rockonthenet.com (April 2002).

• Genres: Rhythm & Blues

Biography

When singer Sade and her band of the same name were establishing themselves, their record company, Epic, made a point of printing "Pronounced Shar-day" on the record labels of their releases. Soon enough, the music had no problem with the correct pronunciation. With the breakthrough Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten single "Smooth Operator" propelling the debut Sade album, Diamond Life, to the same spot on the Billboard 200 chart in 1985, the band fast came to epitomize soulful, adult-oriented, sophisti-pop. Though only five more studio albums would follow during the next 25 years, the band's following abated only slightly, and each release was treated like a long-awaited public return of a mysterious yet beloved diva.

Born Helen Folasade Adu in Ibadan, Nigeria, about 50 miles from Lagos, Sade was the daughter of an African father and an English mother. After her mother returned to England, Adu grew up on the North End of London. Developing a good singing voice in her teens, Adu worked part-time jobs in and outside of the music business. She listened to Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, and Billie Holiday, and studied fashion design at St. Martin's School of Art in London while also doing some modeling on the side.

Around 1980, she 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. The mostly somber Soldier of Love was released in 2010. ~ Ed Hogan, Rovi

See words rhyming with "Sade."