Sade's third album was 1988's Stronger Than Pride and featured her first number one soul single 'Paradise,' 'Nothing Can Come Between Us,' and 'Keep Looking.' A new Sade album didn't appear for four years.

In 1986, Sade won a Grammy for Best New Artist. 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 play lists. January 1985 saw the album released on CBS' Portrait label and by spring it went platinum off the strength of the Top Ten singles 'Smooth Operator' and 'Hang on to Your Love.' Her third album, Promise (November 1985), featured 'Never As Good As the First Time' and arguably her signature song, 'The Sweetest Taboo,' which stayed on the U.S. Her debut album, Diamond Life (with overall production by Robin Millar), went Top Ten in the U.K. Adding keyboardist Andrew Hale, the group signed to the U.K. After a year, the other band members told Sade, Matthewman, and Denmn to go ahead and sign a deal. Initially, the labels wanted to only sign Sade, while the group members wanted a deal for the whole band. Pride did a lot of shows around London, stirring up record company interest. In essence, a few members within the main group Pride formed mini-groups that would be the opening act.

The concept of the group was that there could shoot-offs. The band included future Sade band members guitarist/saxophonist Stuart Matthewman (a key player in '90s urban soul singer Maxwell's success) and bassist Paul Denman. The following year she joined the eight-piece funk band Pride as a background singer. John, 'Smooth Operator,' that would later become Sade's first stateside hit.

One of the more popular numbers that the group would perform was a Sade original co-written with bandmember Ray St. Martin's School of Art in London while also doing some modeling on the side.Īround 1980, she started singing harmony with a Latin funk group called Arriva. She listened to Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, and Billie Holliday. After her mother returned to England, Sade grew up on the North End of London.ĭeveloping a good singing voice in her teens, Sade worked part-time jobs in and outside of the music business. Born Helen Folasade Adu in a village 50 miles from Lagos, the capitol of Nigeria, she was the daughter of an African father and an English mother. Soon enough the world would have no problem in correctly pronouncing her name. W hen Sade first came on the recording scene in the '80s, her record company, Epic, made a point of printing 'pronounced shar-day' after her name on the record labels of her releases.

Sade by your side words