Grace Carter

Grace Carter, an English vocalist celebrated for her deeply expressive singing rooted in R&B and for lyrics that frequently uplift through candid personal reflection, first drew notice in 2017 when her track “Silence” circulated widely online. After joining Dua Lipa on tour, she earned broader recognition by issuing the Why Her Not Me EP and finishing third in BBC’s Sound of 2019. The gospel-tinged A Little Lost, A Little Found followed in 2023.

Born in London, Carter was brought up solely by her white British mother and remained unacquainted with her Black British father, leaving her to wrestle with questions of identity throughout her early years. At thirteen her stepfather handed her a guitar as an outlet for those feelings and required her to compose one new song each week. The exercise soon became a lasting passion, with her writing shaped by soul figures such as Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys, and Nina Simone as well as later voices including Adele and Beyoncé. At eighteen she moved with her family to Brighton, where she refined her sound through performances and recordings.

Her debut single, “Silence,” appeared in 2017 and amassed millions of streams after going viral, which led Dua Lipa to invite her on tour; she next released the single “Ashes.” Both songs were collected on her first EP, the Mike Dean-produced Why Her Not Me, issued in 2018, and the following year she again placed third in BBC’s Sound of 2019. Carter kept releasing non-album singles, among them a cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” plus “Amnesia” and the Jacob Banks collaboration “Blame.” In 2023 she unveiled her sophomore EP, A Little Lost, A Little Found, which featured the stirring gospel-infused anthem “Riot,” a song she had originally written after Eric Garner’s murder in 2014.