This artist followed her gut and became a successful singer/songwriter. This new star is already writing songs with Alicia Keys and getting tweeted by Adele, but she didn’t take the conventional route to stardom. Emeli Sande has a powerful, rich voice full of soul and similar to that of vocal legend Alicia Keys. Her sophisticated lyrics can be heard on her debut album, “Our Version of Events.” She’s been a passionate singer-songwriter since she was only ten years old, but now the twenty four year old Scottish recording artist got her first big break in the industry while still just a teenager. Instead of signing onto the label, she wisely put her career on hold to focus on her education.Sande confidently said“You get so many opinions of which direction you should be going in, and you hear horror stories of people writing 400 songs and the album being shelved,” she says. In Sandé’s estimation, it’s far better to “come knowing what you wanna do. And I know what I want to do.”She earned herself a degree in medicine in six years, and in 2010, with just one year to go, she decided again it was time for a change. She took time out from her studies and dedicated herself to her music full time. She wrote a few songs for British artists such as Leona Lewis, Susan Boyle, Tinie Tempah, and Cheryl Cole. She also achieved the hard to come by approval of Simon Cowell, as he dubbed her his “favourite songwriter at the minute.” That’s more praise than a lot of artists get on American Idol though, right? She walked away with two number one singles in the United Kingdom, but her album “Our Version of Events” also hit number one on the UK Albums Chart. The raw and honest emotion and quality of her album earned her the coveted BRIT Critics Choice Award for 2012, and was also nominated as Breakthrough Artist at this year’s BRITs as well. This established her credibility as an artist and got recruited to write with Alicia Keys. She’s got her goals set high and once she wants something, she works hard to get it.Source: emelisande.com