r&b/soul

Ella Mai

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London-raised singer who broke through with the slow-burning 'Boo'd Up' and has stayed with the same hushed, patient take on R&B ever since.

Ella Mai Howell was born in London in 1994 to a Jamaican mother and an English-Irish father, who named her after Ella Fitzgerald. She moved to New York City at twelve when her mother took a teaching job there, attending Queens High School of Teaching in Glen Oaks, before returning to London at seventeen.

Back in London she studied at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute and briefly competed on The X Factor as part of a trio, Arize, though the group didn't get past the first audition and split soon after. In 2015 she uploaded a solo EP, Troubled, to SoundCloud, and her performances online caught the attention of DJ Mustard, who signed her to his label, 10 Summers Records.

A run of EPs followed: Time in 2016, featuring Ty Dolla Sign, then Change later that year and Ready in 2017. Touring as an opening act on Kehlani's SweetSexySavage World Tour helped push Ready's "Boo'd Up" onto radio, and the song became a sleeper hit, reaching number five on the Billboard Hot 100.

"Boo'd Up" won the Grammy for Best R&B Song and was also nominated for Song of the Year; the follow-up single, "Trip," reached number eleven. Both preceded Mai's self-titled debut album in 2018, which peaked at number five on the Billboard 200 and set the template of unhurried, conversational R&B she has stuck with since.

Her second album, Heart on My Sleeve, arrived in 2022 behind the single "DFMU" and made the US chart without troubling the UK listings. A third, Do You Still Love Me?, followed in February 2026, led by "Tell Her" and "Little Things." Along the way she picked up a string of R&B honours, including wins at the Billboard Music Awards, iHeartRadio Music Awards, NAACP Image Awards and Soul Train Music Awards.

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