SADE: DIAMOND LIFE AT 40

Honouring our invisible superstar (and her band) as their debut album reaches middle age.

Nice pjs and excellent LPs! Sade with her Gil Scott Heron, Marvin Gaye and - I think - Bill Withers Live At Carnegie Hall LPs. Style and taste being Adu hallmarks.

Helen Folasade Adu turned 65 on January 19 this year and the artist, who is amongst Britain’s highest earning musicians, seemingly celebrated quietly with her son (he shared an image on social media of an outing with mama). Another 2024 anniversary for Adu is that Diamond Life, Sade’s debut album, turned 40 on July 16.

As with her birthday, its unlikely Adu will be hosting any public events to celebrate Diamond Life reaching middle age. There won’t be concerts or interviews or a deluxe reissue package with studio outtakes and superstar DJ remixes. This is because Adu has long avoided the music industry treadmill that so many artists appear trapped on. With her band Sade – and, while she is known to the public as Sade, right from the start she always emphasised that Sade were an ensemble (with her as voice/lyricist/public image) – Adu has not released a new album since Soldier Of Love in 2010.

Since then there has only been two new songs for film soundtracks (Steve McQueen’s Widows and Disney’s Flower Of The Universe – both 2018 and equally average). Fan sites like to speculate on how Sade have been spotted going into recording studios and that a new album is “expected” but, for a singer who has long resisted being the focus of attention, its best not to expect anything until there’s an official announcement.

While everyone from Dionne Warwick through Bob Dylan to (add your favourite veteran artist….) keeps recording and touring into their 80s, Adu’s to be admired for not feeling the need for Sade to play a series of nights at London’s O2 where they bash through the likes of Smooth Operator and By Your Side. As her fanbase sent the underwhelming Soldier Of Love to No 1 in the US (No 3 UK) charts and packed stadiums for the subsequent 2011 world tour, the demand certainly is there. But Adu’s desire to continue as a pop star appears to have faded a long time ago.