“I had a friend in primary school who had a James Brown talking robot,” she recalls, laughing.

Talking to her, she seems an old soul beyond her years, and had an unconventional penchant for the oldies even in childhood. I’d almost be pitting myself against these singers from a different era to see if I could do some of the things they could do.” The result is pin-drop ballads such as Strange, sung with stirring vocals that defy her soft-spoken and quirky demeanour. She learned to sing by following along to artists such as Aretha Franklin, “because in my mind she was the best singer ever. But they play them anyway it’s really nice of them!”Īlthough her voice suggests it, she is not classically trained she was born in California but moved to Brighton with her mother as a child, often staying with grandparents growing up. When DJs play my songs on say, Radio 1, they stick out. “It’s a bit of an anomaly,” she says from her flat in north-west London, pondering why her music has been embraced by the mainstream – she won the rising star award at the Brits last year, whose previous winners include Adele and Sam Smith, and is generally anointed as a major new British talent. Recording under her first name, her work harks back to soul and jazz clubs with smoke low in the air, singing poignant tales of love and loss in a lilting, wistful voice that echoes Amy Winehouse’s tone, or even Sarah Vaughan’s. Enter the 26-year-old singer-songwriter Celeste Epiphany Waite. But with a relationship giving her fresh perspective for her debut album, she’s made up for lost timeĬritics may adore the new school of British jazz – acts such as Moses Boyd, Sons of Kemet and Nubya Garcia – but it can still be difficult for the genre to nab mainstream listeners. She was supposed to be the sound of 2020 until the pandemic stalled her progress. Her album Not Your Muse was released today (January 29, 2021) on Polydor. The American-born British singer’s 2019 single “Coco Blood” rendered tribute to her British-Jamaican heritage, and the music video for the song, directed by Akinola Davids, was filmed in Jamaica. (A quivering Father’s Son, which pointedly addresses absent fathers, needs a shout-out here.Christine Ochefu ( The Guardian) highlights the career of soul, blues, and jazz singer and songwriter Celeste (Celeste Epiphany Waite). And for every girl-boss Ideal Woman in the setlist, there are two that fret and gnaw their cuticles. When she briefly speaks to announce song titles or admit she has stage fright, her voice is tiny when she moves to the music, it’s from the waist up, feet seemingly glued to the stage. The first words of tonight’s opening song, Ideal Woman, might transmit bumptious confidence – “I like to think it’s because I’m too proud? Too proud, too proud, too loud / Some others may say it’s because I’m so tall / But that doesn’t bother me at all” – but it’s the little things that tell. It feels a considerable step outside her comfort zone. Celeste, on the other hand, is an indoor artist, excelling in spaces small enough to preserve her fragility and unease.Īs such, the cavernous chapel isn’t the soul-jazz singer’s natural home, but here she is anyway, presiding over five sold-out nights. As the live music industry cautiously dusts itself off, north London’s Union Chapel is in the lucky position of being made for social distancing: its airy stalls and domed ceiling offer the closest thing to an outdoor experience you’ll find at an indoor venue.

Celeste singer