Shaznay Lewis

Shaznay Lewis functioned as the chief creative engine for the chart-dominating All Saints and ranked among the foremost pop songwriters of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Born in London’s Islington borough in 1975, she absorbed the sounds of Bob Marley and Johnny Mathis throughout her formative years. While still a teenager she appeared in three fixtures for Arsenal Ladies F.C.; shortly afterward, a 1993 encounter with Mel Blatt and Simone Rainford inside a studio on All Saints Road prompted her to launch the group All Saints 1.9.7.5. Once Rainford departed, Lewis and Blatt enlisted the Appleton sisters Natalie and Nicole and removed the numerals from the band’s name. The resulting quartet quickly emerged as the Spice Girls’ chief competitors, notching five singles at the summit of the charts together with two albums that also reached number one before the lineup dissolved in 2001. Three years afterward Lewis became the last member to issue a solo project, having secured a contract with London Records; her album Open, buoyed by the Top Ten single “Never Felt Like This Before,” peaked at number 22. All Saints reconvened in 2006 to record the studio set Studio 1. Lewis also took a part in the film Bend It Like Beckham, supplied guest vocals on the Wideboys’ Top 40 single “Daddy O,” and collected an Ivor Novello Award in 2001 for “Pure Shores.”