The U.S. could proudly say that soul music originated in the United States, but that was some time ago. Sadly not much has been done to make the genre well known. While the U.S. had soul singers who went abroad and became famous, here we have a young Brit woman coming over to the U.S. and doing the same thing. Adele is the name.

You wouldn’t have missed the voluptuous figure at the 51st Grammy Awards in February 2009 during which British singer Adele won Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the single Chasing Pavements. The slightly plump 21-year-old outdid Duffy and The Jonas Brothers to win her first award. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent a thank you letter to Adele that stated: “With the troubles that the country’s in financially, you’re a light at the end of the tunnel”.

Adele was also nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. But the simpleton that she is, she felt that the Grammys should not be awarded to musicians who have released only one album. “I cannot see how this album’s life span could get any better and I do not feel like it needs to be. I’m already over the moon and blown away with people’s response to it. Of course I want to win one. But to win a Grammy you must give a performance of your life. And I find it hard to think of my album like that! I cannot be like ’yeah I so deserve it’!” Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born May 5, 1988 in Enfield, North London. She began singing at age 4, impersonating all girl bands The Spice Girls and Destiny's Child. She says she was influenced by the music of Roberta Flack, Johnny Cash, Diana Ross, the Supremes and above all Etta James and Ella Fitzerald.

She graduated from BRIT School, Croydon, the same performing arts school attended by singers Amy Winehouse, Katie Melua and Leona Lewis. Soon after she published two songs on the online arts publication PlatformsMagazine.com. She went on to play in small UK gigs, and toured with best friends Jack Penate, Jamie T, Raul Midon, Devendra Banhart. This also got her her first UK headlining tour in October 2007. The year ended on a good note for Christmas saw her being awarded the first Brit Awards Critics’ Choice Award.

Adele tried many ways to make her music heard. She recorded a demo and gave it to her friend who put it on MySpace. What followed was a record deal through MySpace. Excited at this new development, within no time she wrote her first record Hometown Glory when she was just 16. She signed onto the independent music label XL Recordings which in January 2008 released her second single Chasing Pavements about the dissolution of her relationship with her boyfriend. The song was co-written by Adele with songwriter Eg White who provided the orchestration. It went onto win the 2009 Ivor Novello award for Songwriter of the Year. It stayed at No. 2 for four weeks on the UK charts and remained in the Top 40, fourteen weeks after its release.

Her debut album 19 released in October 2008 was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album sold 230,000 copies in the U.S. ranking it fourth among international artists. In the U.K. the album was No. 1 on the charts, and was certified platinum with sales of more than 500,000 copies in the U.K. alone and over 2.2 million worldwide.

In March 2008 Adele signed a joint venture deal between Columbia Records and XL Recordings, which saw her album released in the United States in June 2008. By October 2008, her attempt to break America seemed to have failed. But she went ahead and tried again. She made her U.S. TV debut on The Today Show and performed Chasing Pavements and Cold Shoulder on Saturday Night Live. This appearance was credited with a sharp rise in her popularity in the U.S. Soon Chasing Pavements became the most-played video on U.S. music channels.

Adele was nominated for a 2008 Mercury Prize Award for 19. She also won an Urban Music Award for Best Jazz Act, while the Chasing Pavements video grabbed an MTV Video Award nomination for Best Choreography.

More TV appearances followed including The Late Show with David Letterman, The View, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and a host of others. Hometown Glory was also featured on popular TV shows Grey’s Anatomy and So You Think You Can Dance.

Generous to a cause, in July 2008, Adele paid £8,000 at a charity auction in aid of ’Keep a Child Alive’ for a commissioned painting. The money raised went towards children with HIV/AIDS and their families in Africa.

2009 saw her nominated for three BRIT Awards — Best British Female, Best British Single and Best British Breakthrough Act. She even played herself on an episode of U.S. TV show Ugly Betty. A photospread by famous photographer Annie Leibovitz appeared in the April 2009 edition of Vogue, featuring Adele’s fashion preferences.

Latest reports reveal that she is working on a new album and has completed five songs. Adele is certainly a name to watch out for.