Sade Adu (born Helen Folasade Adu 16 January 1959) is lead singer of British smooth jazz band Sade. In 2002, Adu received an OBE from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace for services to music, and she dedicated her award to "all black women in England".

Adu is the daughter of a Nigerian father and an English mother. After her mother returned to England, Sade grew up on the North End of London. Developing a good singing voice in her teens, Sade worked part-time jobs in and outside of the music business. She listened to Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, and Billie Holliday. Sade studied fashion design at St. Martin’s School of Art in London while also doing some modeling on the side.

Around 1980, Adu started singing harmony with a latin funk group called Arriva. One of the more popular numbers that the group would perform was a Sade original co-written with bandmember Ray St. John, “Smooth Operator,” that would later become Sade’s first stateside hit. The following year Adu joined the eight-piece funk band Pride as a background singer. The band included future Sade band members guitarist/saxophonist Stuart Matthewman (a key player in ’90s urban soul singer Maxwell’s success) and bassist Paul Denman. The concept of the group was that there could shoot-offs. In essence, a few members within the main group Pride formed mini-groups that would be the opening act. Pride did a lot of shows around London, stirring up record company interest. Initially, the labels wanted to only sign Adu, while the group members wanted a deal for the whole band. After a year, the other band members told Adu, Matthewman, and Denman to go ahead and sign a deal. Adding keyboardist Andrew Hale, the group signed to the U.K. division of Epic Records. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.