Corinne Bailey Rae

The self-titled debut from genre-busting Corinne Bailey Rae dropped in early 2006 with enough new ideas to reignite the flagging neo-soul movement. Meanwhile, her somewhat folky soul-pop sound also had enough jazz nuance for Herbie Hancock to enlist her for the title track of his Grammy-winning 2007 Joni Mitchell tribute, River. Indeed, Bailey Rae excels at reinterpretations, as a 2011 collection of love songs by the likes of Prince, Bob Marley and Paul McCartney proves. Born in 1979 in Leeds, England, to a Caribbean father and English mother, Bailey Rae sang in a Baptist church choir whose leader encouraged her to form the all-female indie group Helen. Her coat-check job in a jazz club led to onstage sit-ins, a record deal and marriage to saxophonist Jason Rae. While the hit singles "Put Your Records On" and soundtrack-ubiquitous "Like a Star" from Corinne Bailey Rae came across as effortlessly soothing, 2010's The Sea offered a mournful, yearning response to her husband's 2008 death. (Even the tracks written before his overdose, like "I'd Do It All Again," sound eerily prescient.) Remarried to longtime collaborator Steve Brown and primed for a new artistic direction, Bailey Rae took inspiration from L.A.’s thriving Black bohemian scene for 2016's electrified The Heart Speaks in Whispers, with collaborators Esperanza Spalding, Moses Sumney and R&B trio King adding a jazzy, jammy undercurrent to Bailey Rae's delicately dreamy ballads.