Kelli-Leigh

British pop-soul vocalist Kelli-Leigh first established her reputation through backing vocals supplied to artists such as Adele, an association that preceded the commercial breakthrough of two dance singles featuring her performances and ultimately opened the route to her own recording projects. Born Kelli-Leigh Henry-Davila in 1985 and raised in Selhurst, South London, she held singing as her central ambition and accepted her sole conventional position only to fund the purchase of a keyboard for songwriting. After graduating from the BRIT School in the same class as Leona Lewis and Katie Melua, her growing standing as a skilled and reliable session vocalist secured a place on Adele’s tour supporting the singer’s debut album. While that tour continued, Adele released her second album 21, which became a major international success and led to Kelli-Leigh appearing alongside her at both the Grammys and the Oscars. Once the tour concluded in 2012, Kelli-Leigh issued her debut EP I Am Here, though the project did not register on the charts. She then relocated to Poland for a year and a half of residence and professional work, coming close to a contract with Universal there until a serious car accident left her unable to walk for several months. Still recovering in a wheelchair, she accepted an invitation to record a session vocal for house producer Duke Dumont. The resulting 2014 single “I Got U” reached number one in the U.K., its impact heightened by her vocal approach recalling Whitney; months afterward, Secondcity’s “I Wanna Feel,” which also carried her uncredited vocals, duplicated that chart-topping achievement. The rapid success supplied fresh momentum, prompting her to resume development of a solo career. While continuing work on her debut album over the following years, she contributed songwriting and featured vocals to numerous popular singles, earning the description “the voice of U.K. dance music” from one BBC Radio 1 DJ. The most prominent of those tracks was James Hype’s 2017 release “More Than Friends,” which peaked at number eight on the U.K. singles chart.