“As soon as I got a microphone in my hand when I was about 14, I realised I wanted to do this,” Adele says. “Most people don’t like the way their voice sounds when it’s recorded. I was just so excited by the whole thing that I wasn’t bothered what it sounded like.”

Adele is from a resolutely un-musical family, but she realised her calling early on and signed up to The Brit School - the Selhurst college whose alumni number Amy Winehouse, members of The Feeling and Kate Nash. Despite being quick off the mark on MySpace – her friend set up a page for Adele’s music on the last day of 2004 – it wasn’t until 2006 that labels started noticing her talent, when XL called her in for a meeting.

Despite interest from plenty of other labels, the independent regarded for nurturing unique one-off acts proved the perfect match for her one-off talent, and XL put out Adele’s stunning debut album ‘19’ and singles ‘Chasing Pavements’ and ‘Hometown Glory’. Four years after its release, Adele’s debut album had sold 2 million copies.

Her second album ‘21’, which includes the spine tingling it ‘Rolling in The Deep’ had sold over 21 million copies by mid 2012 – making it the biggest selling album of the 21st century. At the start of 2012, Adele won six Grammys, including Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year, and two Brit awards including the prestigious ‘Mastercard British Album of the Year' award.

In 2013 'Skyfall' won the Oscar for Best Original Song, as well as a BRIT award for Best British Single, and Adele was awarded an MBE for services to music.

In October 2015 Adele released new single ‘Hello’, which went to No. 1 in 35 countries and became the fastest song ever to reach 1 billion streams on Vevo. 

Her hugely anticipated third album ‘25’ followed in November, topping the charts in 28 countries, and breaking the record for the fastest week one sales in the UK and US. By the end of January 2016 ‘25’ had sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, including over 7.8 million in the US and 2.6 million in the UK.