Adele

by Chas Newkey-Burden

  Indeed, the school’s prospectus makes it a point of pride to describe the assistance it gives pupils. ‘The school has a unique atmosphere of support and respect which helps cultivate the ability and talent of our young people,’ it reads. Many of its alumni are in agreement with this boast, including Adele. She also confirms that there is some truth in the comparison that is often made to the legendary American home of performing dreams. ‘It was a bit like Fame sometimes – you get people doing their ballet stretches and singers having sing-offs… I’d rather that than someone pulling out a knife!’ She actually credits the establishment with saving her from a less exciting childhood. She believes that her fellow pupils helped lift her away from a mundane road. ‘I hate to think where I’d have ended up if I hadn’t gone,’ she said. ‘It’s quite inspiring to be around 700 kids who want to be something – rather than 700 kids who just wanna get pregnant so they get their own flat.’ She expanded on how she became confronted by this contrast. ‘Nothing against it, but all of my friends from [her previous] school have kids,’ she said. ‘Not because they didn’t have things to do but that’s just what you did. It’s rubbish. Things were looking quite bleak. Then I got to go to school with other kids who wanted to be something.’

  She felt she took a major step up in the world when she moved her schooling from Balham to Croydon. Not that the new environment made her a ‘goody two shoes’ character, nor anything like it. The land of slumber often delayed her arrival. ‘I’d turn up to school four hours late,’ she said. ‘I was sleeping. I wasn’t doing anything… I just couldn’t wake up.’

  Once up and about, though, she was a popular, gregarious student, one of those teenagers who seemed to know and be known by everyone. However, she does not recall Leona Lewis from her time there, even though their paths will have coincided. ‘That Leona Lewis must’ve been a quiet horse as I can’t remember her at all,’ said Adele, ‘and I knew everyone there.’

  As for Lewis now, though she has spoken of a desire to duet with Adele, she has never spoken of any memories of her at the BRIT School. But Lewis too has spoken in glowing terms of her own experience at the school, despite what was a lengthy commute for her as a young student: ‘It took nearly two hours door-to-door, but was so worth it ’cos it’s such a great education there. There’s no other place like it and it gave me so much.’

  Adele continues to be little short of gushing in her praise: ‘I loved it there, it’s such a great place and the support you get is amazing. Some of the shows they put on are amazing – better than any of the shows on in town at the moment.’ When she was selected to take part in one such production, she was late. ‘My heart exploded in my chest. It was pretty horrible. I almost did get kicked out of school for that. Now I’m always on time.’ Indeed, she traces her boisterous nature back to her schooldays. ‘Sometimes I’m so loud that afterwards I cringe, but I can’t help it,’ she said. ‘I like being the life of the party. At school I was the class clown, trying to bust jokes all the time.’

  There were challenges, too, at BRIT. All of those creative, sometimes sensitive, souls created an interesting vibe. Many of the pupils felt moments of frustration as their temperamental natures came to the fore. Adele was one of these. ‘Sometimes I wanted to leave because when you are creative you can be quite frustrated,’ she recalled. ‘I never really paid attention in my studio lessons. Whenever I go in the studio, I’m always nervous. I have never conquered that fear.’ That fear plagued her time at school, too. Her concern was compounded by the fact that she still wondered if she was ever going to make a career in the industry. ‘I don’t think I was frustrated because of the school,’ she said. ‘I never thought my being a professional singer was going to happen, so I sometimes thought it was a waste of time pursuing something that most likely was not going to happen.’

  She did not exactly excel in the more conventional parts of the curriculum. Her mind was even then becoming increasingly focused on purely creative matters. ‘My academic side went downhill and I played the class clown too often,’ she said, ‘but I loved the music lessons.’ The mere experience of being at the school changed so much about her, not only her talents but her tastes, too. ‘I am much more open-minded about music having been there,’ she said. ‘When I went there, I made friends who were into music I was unaware of or dismissive of, like atmospheric dub step or heavy hip hop. It was an eye-opener as a teenager.’ The laidback element of the curriculum and its delivery also suited her just fine. ‘Of course you do actual lessons but they don’t force anything on to you,’ she said. ‘They just aim to help you develop. They nurture you, you know.’

  That said, she had criticisms of the place. Sometimes, she has said, she felt that the musical parts of the BRIT curriculum were too focused on the smaller details of songs. She prefers not to overanalyse music, for much the same reason she had until recently eschewed singing lessons. Indeed, for Adele, one of the best ways to learn more about vocal prowess is simply by listening to the greats, analysing what makes them great and attempting to replicate it yourself. ‘They kind of try to teach you to dissect music but I don’t want to do that,’ she said. ‘I’ve had one singing lesson in my life. It made me think about my voice too much. You can teach yourself. I listened to Etta to get a bit of soul, Ella for my chromatic scales, Roberta Flack for control.’ With Adele supplementing professional guidance from the BRIT with her own, straightforward self-tuition, she had begun to develop her already strong singing voice into the breathtaking affair it is today.

  While her classes and home-lessons developed her song, it was sometimes her fellow pupils who helped spur on her ambition and focus. In her second year, she met someone who would inspire her to seek ever greater things. A singer called Shingai Shoniwa moved in next door to Adele – who was very impressed with her. Indeed, she liked not just what she saw, but what she heard. ‘She’s an amazing singer,’ said Adele.

  Shingai Elizabeth Maria Shoniwa had a tough start in life, one that Adele will have related to as they talked. Shoniwa grew up in south London, raised mostly by her mother after her father died when she was young. ‘Wanting to escape from reality can inspire the greatest and most trivial creative natures in people,’ she has commented. Shoniwa’s voice is exceptional and unforgettable. Rolling Stone magazine would later describe it as ‘a living, breathing manifestation of the rock’n’roll spirit, with a voice that is equal parts Iggy Pop and Billie Holiday’. She also has considerable and natural charisma about her. In her early days as a musician, when she was playing a gig at a squat, she played her guitar with a loaf of bread instead of a plectrum. She would later dislocate her shoulder due to excessive leaping around during live performances. She speaks with visceral emotion about music: ‘When you look at someone like Grace Jones, David Bowie or Jimi Hendrix, you see part-human transcending that part-beast who can’t really control their own surroundings.’

  Hers was a voice that captured the imagination of Adele back in the school days before either of them was famous. ‘I remember when Shingai Shoniwa was rehearsing I used to press my ear to the wall and listen to her, entranced,’ said Adele of her unofficial audience. ‘I used to hear her through the walls. I’d go round and we’d jam and stuff like that. Just hearing her and her music really made me want to be a writer and not just sing Destiny’s Child songs.’ Shoniwa went on to enjoy success with a band called the Noisettes – however, most importantly for our story is the ambition that she fired up inside Adele. (Later, Adele would share a producer with Shoniwa’s band.)

  So, what did Adele’s fellow pupils make of her? Pop singer Jessie J was at the BRIT School at the same time and she recalls Adele as the belle of the BRIT ball. ‘At school she was very kind of loud and everyone knew her, and she was the girl everyone loved and up for a laugh and you could hear her laugh from a mile down the corridor,’ said Jessie. Creatively, their paths also crossed. ‘She was in music and I was in musical theatre. We used to jam at lunchtime and someone would play guitar and
we both would just sing.’ Something of a tradition was set back then which the two young women continue to this day. ‘We’re so common when we’re together, it’s hilarious,’ said Jessie, who has become another hugely successful BRIT graduate. She came top in the BBC’s Sound of 2011 poll, was named the critics’ choice winner at the Brit awards in the same year and had a UK No 1 with her catchy song ‘Price Tag’, a dominant part of Britain’s 2011 pop soundtrack.

  Katy B also attended the same time as Adele. ‘Jessie and Adele were both in the year above me and they were singers I really looked up to,’ said Katy, who went on to study at Goldsmiths College, University of London. These years really were particularly ripe ones for BRIT. Katy paints a portrait of a building that was fit to burst with musical creativity: ‘You walk into the foyer and somebody is always playing an acoustic guitar or singing,’ she said. For her, the presence of Adele was a joy and an important part of the appeal of school life. ‘Having people like Adele pass around knowledge and information and being so passionate about what you are learning is amazing,’ she said. ‘One of my favourite singers is Jill Scott and the person who introduced me to Jill was Adele. I was doing a project with her and she got me into soul. She’d always say you have to listen to this or that.’

  Kate Nash was another of Adele’s fellow pupils who went on to make it big. Adele said that Nash was an absolute scream at times. Nash was ‘so funny. She was always doing impressions during lessons,’ said Adele. One can just imagine her cheeky, booming laugh ringing out in response to Nash’s wit and mimicry. Katie Melua was yet another pupil and, said Adele, ‘lovely, too. She was straighter, but she had a wicked voice.’ Since leaving BRIT, Nash has stayed loyal to her fellow students by employing many of them as dancers.

  The director of music at the BRIT School is Liz Penney. She had interviewed Adele for her place and by chance this was the first time Penney had interviewed a prospective student. Not a bad first effort for her to have made. She remembers Adele only too well. ‘She was great fun,’ said Penney. ‘She was here for four years and sometimes she worked really hard and sometimes she didn’t work quite so hard. She was quite chatty… but she always made me laugh. From the time she came here – when some of the other students weren’t so into songwriting – she was from the moment she arrived.’ Addressing her former star pupil, she proudly added, ‘Adele, well done, love. The girl done good. I’m really proud of you, as are all the music staff here.’ Hearing these words brought tears to the eyes of Adele.

  The fact Adele went to BRIT School is a key part of her story, one that is frequently recounted as a central point in most articles that are written about her. From the school’s point of view, this is a positive. Indeed, for the entire educational genre of the performing arts, it is a plus. In the eyes of some, Adele has made the concept of the stage school a cool one. While some commentators find it all too easy to dismiss graduates, people like Adele and Amy Winehouse have made it credible in the music industry. Rock singer James Allan, who is the frontman of Oasis-esque indie outfit Glasvegas, changed his thinking after meeting Adele. ‘Growing up, something like the BRIT School was the least cool thing you could admit to,’ he told the Daily Star. ‘But you meet some people and it makes you more open-minded and helps you understand where they come from. I can say that I met Adele one night, I didn’t know who she was. We were in this bar and when I spoke to her I thought she’d got this amazing soul, a really soulful person. You know all that karma crap, well I got a great vibe off her, whether she’s been to stage school or not. I’m really glad that she’s doing so well.’

  The Guardian’s Tim Jonze also believes that Adele runs contrary to the normal perception of the stage-school graduate. ‘She is as far from the dead-eyed, all-singing, all-dancing stage-school desperado as imaginable,’ he wrote. The Sun newspaper listed the BRIT as one of its ONE HUNDRED PLACES THAT MAKE BRITAIN BRILLIANT in June 2011. It included Adele’s connection with it as the key piece of evidence for its brilliance. Adele herself defined the place as its most popular graduate. Previously, Amy Winehouse had held that honour but her dismissive comments about the place – it ‘was shit’ – had rather sullied the connection for both parties.

  Another old boy, Luke from the indie band the Kooks, is also somewhat dismissive of the place but with a more measured tone. ‘I have mixed feelings about the BRIT,’ said the man who attended some years before Adele. ‘Some people get really wrapped up in fame – there are kids from the middle of nowhere and their parents treat them like they’re already celebrities ’cause they’re at this famous school.’

  Adele remains a glowing ambassador for the place. She has even spoken of an ambition to form a female supergroup featuring female singers who have passed through the BRIT School’s doors. In the line-up alongside Adele would have been Kate Nash, Katie Melua and – until her tragic death in the summer of 2011 – Amy Winehouse. Adele said the band would ‘represent most women in the world. If we were in a band I think it would be the best band ever.’ She would not necessarily limit the line-up of her fantasy supergroup just to BRIT alumni, saying that she also hoped Lily Allen would join.

  While the BRIT School has unquestionably nurtured a respectable slice of the female vocal talent that has entered the industry in recent years, the charts have also been home to lots of female singers who took different routes to the top. Among these are Lily Allen, Joss Stone, Duffy and Dido. The soul singers among them have all attempted to conquer America. Adele could watch the experiences of Stone, Duffy and Winehouse in particular for evidence of how to succeed in the US. Meanwhile, in the UK, she could consider herself a key part of a new trend, as the British pop public went bonkers for female solo artists. Indeed, Adele spoke glowingly of Amy Winehouse and how she led a new charge of talented female singers from the Croydon institution and beyond. This, the childhood Spice Girls fan might have paused to reflect, was true ‘girl power’ in action. ‘I think Amy has paved the way for me and Duffy,’ she said. ‘There used to be only one girl a year in the industry but now six or seven of us have come through in the last few years: Amy, Duffy, Lily and Kate.’

  In 2007, as the BRIT School kept hitting the news because of the rush of its graduates in the charts, particularly female vocalists, Adele put the trend in what she saw as its correct context. ‘Before this year the BRIT School didn’t actually produce anyone. All this money was being pumped into it and nobody was coming out of it and doing well, so I think they were getting a bit worried. I think the BRIT School’s produced loads of great people that nobody knows yet but, off the back of Amy, it’s been getting more support. Suddenly all these great girls came forward in this great outburst of talent – I think it’s just luck and timing, to be honest.’

  Yet with her trademark frankness, she has admitted that BRIT has also had some real duds through its doors. ‘Some of the people there are atrocious, really bad,’ she said. ‘They all wanna be fucking soul singers! I’m all up for people who are in development, but not people who are in there for four years and start when they’re shit and leave when they’re even worse.’

  Alongside this trend of stage-school graduates, it has also been noted that there is a growing number of pop stars who have been privately educated. Artists such as Laura Marling, Florence Welch, Jack Penate, Jamie T and Coldplay’s Chris Martin join members of folk bands Noah & the Whale and Mumford & Sons in this category. Even Lily Allen, despite her ‘mockney’ image, was privately educated at a leading British boarding school. Adele’s Pop Idol hero Will Young was also privately educated. In the past, so-called posh pop formed a part of the industry. Indeed, the contrast between well-spoken, art-school types like Blur formed a dynamic contrast with working-class bands like Oasis. However, Adele stood aside from these trends: as we have seen, as the daughter of a single mother, she spent the earliest years of her life in Tottenham. After moving between a few state schools, she did move to an arts college, but, of course, BRIT is a state-funded institution.

 
Her interviews became legendary. Few could believe that this young woman with such a soulful and rich singing voice could have such an everyday, down-to-earth speaking voice. While she remains a working-class girl, the fact is that she is – rightly – not ashamed of her background and she has no intention of singing about her humble upbringing and the challenges it offered her. Indeed, she loathes musicians who sing about class issues from such a stance. ‘It’s all, “Oh, I come from nothing.” Shut up, man! It doesn’t matter. If you’re good, you get places, full stop. But I do get pissed off when people say my friends are apparently posh. Jack Penate went to a public school on a scholarship, you know. You should see Jamie T’s house – it’s rank. And Kate Nash has never even spoken about her background. Just ’cos she sings with an accent doesn’t mean she’s trying to say that she’s working class. Nobody likes a posh voice, do they?’

  Adele’s graduation was a big step, just as it is for so many school leavers as they step nervously into the exciting and scary realities of proper adult life. Looking back on it, Adele offered a perspective on what it felt like to leave the BRIT School and enter the big world outside. ‘You’re a huge fish in a small pond, whereas, when you leave and go out from your comfort, you’re a goldfish in an ocean,’ she said. To continue with the aquatic metaphor, Adele would quickly become a large fish in that very ocean. As such, she is by most standards one of the most successful and impressive graduates of BRIT. When they accepted her into their fold, they had made a wise decision. The budding Adeles of Britain now only want to go to one place. There can be no greater kudos for a place such as the BRIT School than watching one of its alumni set the world alight with their music.