Veronica Maggio

Veronica Maggio, born Veronica Sandra Karin Maggio in Uppsala to an Italian father and a Swedish mother, has sung almost entirely in Swedish throughout her career. Before recording as a solo artist she attended Uppsala's music-focused schools and fronted a band called Solitude while at Bolandgymnasiet. She signed with Universal Music and released her debut single, "Dumpa mig," in 2006.

Her debut album, Vatten och bröd, followed later that year and became a commercial success, winning her the Grammis award for Newcomer of the Year. Most of its songs were written with Stefan Gräslund, aside from a rap verse on "Vi har, vi har" contributed by rapper LKM.

Maggio's writing is conversational and detailed, often about relationships, drinking and small humiliations, set to arrangements that borrow from soul and, on later records, from hip-hop and electronic production. She has said she tried writing in English as a teenager but only found her own voice once she switched to Swedish.

The 2011 album Satan i gatan, made with collaborators including Christian Walz and Markus Krunegård, is generally regarded as her breakthrough on a national scale. It topped the album charts in both Sweden and Norway, and every track from it reached the Swedish singles top 30, with the lead single "Jag kommer" debuting at number one and becoming the country's best-selling single of that year.

Since then she has released five more albums with Universal, four of which topped the Swedish chart, and placed 26 songs in the national top 20. She has had three number-one singles in Europe: "Måndagsbarn" in Norway in 2008, and "Jag kommer" and "Hornstullsstrand" in Sweden. She has also written for other artists, including Avicii's "Hey Brother" in 2013 and songs with Maja Francis in 2015.