At the Brit Awards last Tuesday, a 21-year old singer-songwriter named Ed Sheeran snagged as just as many awards as Adele.
Despite the acclaim, the natural question for many music fans outside of the UK remains: wait - who?
Sheeran's tale has unraveled over the last few years and is a unique one. It involves open mics and Hollywood stars, underground grimemakers and the influence of Tupac.
Born in Halifax, West Sussex, Sheeran picked up guitar at a young age, and began to noodle around with songwriting. At the age of 11, Sheeran attended a small concert by Damien Rice, and, after the show, ran into the Irish singer-songwriter at the bar. The meeting inspired him to take the noodling more seriously.
“I had a little bit of a chat and kind of had an epiphany, like ’Wow, this is exactly what I want to do!’ I got home that night and wrote a whole bunch of songs," Sheeran recollected in an interview with The Telegraph in 2011.
After releasing a trio of basement releases – an EP (The Orange Room), a self-titled album and another full-length, Want Some?, in 2007 – Sherran moved from the country and into London in 2008. There, he released a second EP, which featured his first hit: "The A Team".
Sheeran recorded the song and made a video out of his own pocket, and independently distributed the single, which sold a staggering 200,000 copies within two week thanks in part to his large YouTube following.
Then, he left London. Sheeran split from his management company, packed his bags, and took his sound (a mix of folk, beatboxing and rap [he lists rapper Tupac Shakur as another early influence]) to Hollywood.
Despite having only one contact in the city, Sheeran quickly merged into L.A.'s open mic scene, and before long was invited to perform a set on The Foxxhole, the satellite radio show hosted by Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx. The gig impressed the actor, who invited Sheeran to stay at his Hollywood mansion and record music.
As he told MTV UK: "When I performed on Jamie’s show, he gave me his number and told me he had a studio that he created for musicians like me and said whenever I wanna make music, I could come in and use it, free of charge!... The thing I really like about him is that everyone in his family lives with him; from his sister, to his daughters, to his best mate, his best mate’s wife and the dude who’s writing his new TV show. They all live in this one massive mansion. It’s not like, ‘I’m Jamie Foxx’, it’s like, ‘This is our home, we all live here.’ There’s no arrogance at all and it was just really nice to be brought into that."
A year later, Sheeran returned to London and signed with Sir Elton John's management company and agreed to a record contract with Atlantic Records, then surprised many with his next project: an EP called No.5 Collaborations Project. The album featured the singer-songwriter in collaboration with several of London's top underground grime artists, including Wiley, Ghetts and Devlin. The EP was a hit -- battling Rihanna for top spot in the UK iTunes charts.
Sheeran described his surprise in an interview with the BBC: "I would have been happy for it to chart at 20, but when it got to number 12 I was like 'ok, I want it to chart higher now' so I started to push it a bit more. Then when it got to number four last night I thought I'll leave this, wake up and it would have dropped to number 17 in the morning. I woke up and it was at number three...Rihanna has got Jay Z behind her, the X Factor, three singles, music videos, radio, press, so I won't be too upset if I don't get higher than her."
In September 2011, Sheeran released his first major label album, + (Atlantic Records). Without convincing all the critics, the album featured several of the songs he'd debuted on YouTube or on his previous recordings. + quickly climnbed to the #1 spot on the UK charts, and was certified platinum in the UK and gold in Australia.
Ed Sheeran will be touring through Canada this spring, with dates in Toronto (Massey Hall, April 17), Montreal (Metropolis, April 16) and Vancouver (April 30, 2012).
