I remember hearing Smooth Operator as a kid and initially being somewhat intrigued because it was different to everything else I was listening to.

He actually collaborates with Sade band member Matthewman on basically all his records, also takes around 8 years between albums, and has the suited-up smooth jazz style with more focus on sound than hit melodies. I guess the closest thing to a Sade is Maxwell. She has never done a collaboration with another artist or worked when she didn’t want to, one of the few modern acts to be able to get away with that. Her privacy and mystery has only increased her impact I think (and she’s a real ‘artists artist’, everyone from Drake to Kanye West has named her as an influence despite sounding nothing like her). The title track is pure ASMR (‘I am in the wilderness, you are in the music, in the man’s car next to me’), while By Your Side uses just the right amount of modern technology in the production, and ‘It’s Only Love That Gets You Through’ is so tender.

On the other hand their most sonically beautiful album is ‘Lovers Rock’ IMO - if it lacks as many hit ‘songs’ as their prior records, but makes up for it in *sounds*. The vivid lyrics (“wider than Victoria Lake”), the prowling quiet-loud dynamic in the music, and her impeccably measured vocal that brings pure DRAMA down to the last howl of “is it a crime?” Perfection. I agree that ‘Is It A Crime?’ is probably her masterpiece. I’ve loved her since I heard ‘When Am I Gonna Make A Living’ (one of their more upbeat tracks, in hindsight) and she has given us the perfect soundtrack to those after-hours evenings, while also personifying ‘Cool Britannia’ in her early years with Smooth Operator and Sweetest Taboo. Many of the criticisms about her work sounding same-y are true, but she is the perfect listen when in the right mood. Sade rarely grants interviews.Īpparently, the only celebrity she's dated was fellow recluse singer, Maxwell. In 2005, Sade moved to the Gloucestershire countryside, where she bought a run-down cottage to renovate. In September 2019, Izaak posted a message online, thanking his mother for her support through his transition. In 2016, on National Coming Out Day, Sade's child came out as a transgender man named Izaak Theo Adu. Sade and Morgan later separated, and she has been in a relationship with Ian Watts, a former Royal Marine, since 2007 from this relationship, she has a stepson. The child was raised as a daughter, who sang on Sade's song 'Babyfather' in 2010. Sade moved briefly to the Caribbean to live with Jamaican music producer Bob Morgan in the late 1990s, and gave birth to their child on 21 July 1996. In 1989, she married Spanish film director Carlos Pliego. Sade squatted in Tottenham in the 1980s, with her boyfriend Robert Elms. The 'personal life' section of her wiki is interesting:

Sade by your side free listen