Jade

Though audiences may struggle to connect the solo moniker JADE with a familiar voice, she has logged consistent chart success through her role in Little Mix. The group captured victory on the British competition The X Factor before racking up more than a dozen Top Ten singles, most notably across the U.K., where five of those tracks reached number one. Following the quartet’s decision to pause activities in 2022, JADE stepped out alone and landed her first individual success in 2024 with the pulsing, synth-driven seasonal single “Angel of My Dreams.”

Born Jade Thirlwall in 1992 in the seaside community of South Shields, she grew up as the youngest sibling to an English father and a mother whose heritage traces to Egypt and Yemen. Exposed to Arabic during her earliest years, she endured repeated episodes of racial prejudice at school and turned to singing along with experimenting with cosmetics for comfort. At fifteen she tried out for the U.K. edition of The X Factor in 2008, yet exited after the second bootcamp round; a further bid in 2010 also fell short before she received another invitation in 2011. That year she was grouped with Leigh-Anne Pinnock in a prospective act called Orion. When Orion disbanded, judge Kelly Rowland of Destiny’s Child proposed that Thirlwall and Pinnock combine with the remaining finalists Perrie Edwards and Jesy Nelson. Originally titled Rhythmix, the newly formed ensemble adopted the name Little Mix to resolve legal concerns and ultimately claimed the season’s title, becoming the only all-female act ever to achieve that distinction on the program.

Little Mix’s first release, a version of Damien Rice’s “Cannonball,” ascended to the top position in both the U.K. and Ireland while narrowly missing the year-end Christmas number-one spot in England. By the next summer the four members began issuing original songs, with Thirlwall frequently credited as a co-writer; among them, “Wings” secured another U.K. chart-topper and entered the Top Ten in Australia and Japan. Their string of buoyant, harmony-rich pop successes helped revive interest in all-female collectives on British charts, highlighted by the number-one entries “Black Magic,” “Shout Out to My Ex,” and “Sweet Melody,” alongside enduring tracks such as “Move,” “Salute,” “Touch,” the Stormzy collaboration “Power,” and the Nicki Minaj-assisted “Woman Like Me.”

Thirlwall remained with Little Mix after Jesy Nelson stepped away in 2020 for health-related reasons. The remaining trio declared a temporary break in 2021 to explore individual endeavors and attend to personal matters, noting that Pinnock and Edwards had each become mothers that year. During the pause Thirlwall issued her first solo outing, “Angel of My Dreams,” in July 2024. Shifting between driving electronic rhythms and an expansive chorus reminiscent of Mariah Carey’s signature anthems, the track climbed to number seven on the British pop chart. A follow-up single, “Midnight Cowboy,” arrived in September.