Emeli Sandé asks how were we to know?

Since her early twenties, when she turned aside from a career in medicine to pursue her musical ambitions, singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé has earned four BRITs, three MOBOs and two Ivor Novellos as well as an MBE. Her earliest recordings were with artists such as Tinie Tempah, Professor Green, Naughty Boy and Wiley, and she continues to collaborate widely, recently appearing on Ezra Collective’s Mercury Prize–winning Where I’m Meant to Be. Her solo debut, Our Version of Events, was the bestselling album of 2012 in the UK; this November, she releases her fifth, How Were We to Know.

In the eleven years separating them, the music industry has been through radical changes, good and bad. “There does seem to be a lot more freedom now, with more ways of releasing music and direct contact to your fans,” she says. “When I first got into the industry you were at the mercy of your label. If they decided it wasn’t time to release the album, or they’re not going to get behind a single, then that was it. Whereas now there’s so many different portals to get things out, and your fans can be with you more in real time as to where your music’s going. So that’s a big positive, in that if you have something great that you made in your bedroom last night, you can put it up and hopefully people can hear what you’re doing.”

But she is concerned that young musicians no longer benefit from the investment in artist development that gave her breathing space when starting out. “If I were to have put out the first music I made when I got signed, it wouldn’t have been as strong as the album that I did end up releasing. Even though it’s frustrating at that time and you want to get stuff out, I do think that protection and marination period is important.” A linked concern is the relentless focus on social media statistics and the consequent neglect of less publicity-minded artists. “There’s so much talent out there that I think isn’t getting seen due to that, which is such a shame. Whereas before there were other ways to get in if you’re more reserved. It does seem very quick, very big bang, all of a sudden, which can be great but, in other ways, how do you keep that longevity of a career? How do you slowly, slowly incline to where you want to get?”

“Often life happens fast and you don’t realize what you’re going through half of the time”

— Emeli

Her own public profile was supercharged by memorable performances at both the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics, leading to work on the soundtrack for Danny Boyle’s film Trance the following year. Her contribution, “Here It Comes”, is a song that Sandé still loves. “I’m working on a musical at the moment and we’re hoping to feature that song, so it’s nice that it might get another moment to shine.” The realization that she could be performing a song more than a decade after writing it has changed her approach to the lyrics. “As life goes on, the songs start to mean something different. I want [them] to have an openness that can grow in time. I don’t want to overexplain myself.” She likens songs to photographs that capture a particular moment or feeling, on which you can reflect many years later. “Music gives you this way of understanding your own emotions. Some of the songs are written purely in the height of the emotion, so it all just comes out. Often life happens fast and you don’t realize what you’re going through half of the time.”

Sandé now has her own basement studio set up for composing and recording, “this closed-off space where I can properly dig in.” But she also enjoys the freedom technology brings to work anywhere, whether on the beach at the Tobago Jazz Festival or back home in Scotland. “We had mountains behind us, I took an iPad up there and I wrote a song called ‘Who Needs the World’, which I released earlier this year through a short film. I sampled my old piano, which was a bit out of tune, and I did all the singing up on the mountains. I believe we used that original sample in the actual tune.”

“I still find it pretty easy to do,” Sandé says of songwriting, “but I like to keep moving and changing.” Inspiration may come from working with co-writers and producers – How Were We to Know reunites her with Mac & Phil, Ollie Green and Daniel Caruana, among others – or from immersing herself in a variety of musical genres. “After writing music within a certain format for quite a while, it’s great to look at other ways to get that same emotion across. I’m always listening to different types of music, and I listen to a lot of classical now, just to really inspire melodies.” She says she’s recently got into Amapiano and Bossa Nova, “seeing different parts of the world, how they express their selves. Especially going into this new chapter, I want to make sure I’m not in stuck in a comfort zone, and really start pushing myself.”

Sandé highlights two contrasting songs on the new album that demonstrate this commitment to innovation. “My Boy Likes to Party” was written during lockdown when she was listening to a lot of dance music. “I was working with a producer called Henri Davies. I originally met him as an engineer, so his knowledge of what you can do with software, with a computer, with technology, definitely opened up doors and sparked new imagination.” It’s immediately followed by one of her favourite tracks, “Lighthouse”, which lays Sandé’s serene vocal over a reggae beat. “The way it came about was really natural: lyrically I was left to do my own thing, musically Phil Leigh was on guitar, and then Da Genius took on the production. I just think that song really represents me in a very honest time. But I love that it still has power, it still has an emotion without anything being too pushed, or too loud, or too over the top. I hope it will surprise a lot of people.”

Although their musical influences are diverse, the songs on How Were We to Know share a unifying theme: the opening track is titled “Love”, the closing one “All My Love”. “It’s a lot to do with romantic relationships,” she admits. But the album also explores other kinds of relationship – with her own identity, with the wider world, even with the music industry. For Sandé, making music is a way to process her feelings. “It has always been therapy for me, whether it’s the physical process of singing, which can be cathartic in itself – there’s a lot of breathing and you’re really getting out a lot of energy – or whether it’s the writing down, that’s like journalling.” Above all, there is the alchemy that transmutes both heartbreak and joy into song. “I always feel lucky that, no matter what I go through, I can always make beautiful music out of the emotion.”

How Were We to Know is out November 17th.

Author: Rachel Goodyear