b. Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel, 19 February 1963, Paddington, London, England. Singer-songwriter Seal established himself at the forefront of a British soul revival in the 90s, enjoying transatlantic success with his first two albums. The second eldest of six brothers, his ancestry mixed Nigerian, Brazilian and Afro-Caribbean blood. Seal’s first performance was at school at the age of 11, but it would be much later before his tentative musical plans came to fruition. Despite making many demos, he found it difficult to break into the music industry. After six months in Asia, he returned to England to find it entrenched in the acid house explosion. As the result of a chance encounter with rap artist Chester he was introduced to techno wizard Adamski. Seal happily contributed lyrics to his embryonic dance track, ‘Killer’, which eventually took the UK’s clubs by storm and topped the pop charts in April 1990.
The partnership with Adamski did not last and Seal inaugurated his solo career later in the year with the UK number 2 hit, ‘Crazy’. The first thing he had ventured to write on the guitar, the lyrics were imbued with the sort of new age mysticism given vent by 90s dance culture. With production handled by ZTT Records’ Trevor Horn, Seal went on to record a magnificent debut album in Los Angeles with Wendy And Lisa which proved a huge commercial success (over three and a half million copies worldwide). This was compounded when 1992’s BRIT Awards saw him walk away with nearly every conceivable category. The high-profile campaign launched by WEA Records for his excellent second album in 1994, once again an eponymous affair, and once again a worldwide success (over five million copies sold). The following year proved that Seal was no flash in the pan, with the heart stopping ballad ‘Kiss From A Rose’ used as the soundtrack theme for the movie Batman Forever. The single topped the US charts and reached the UK Top 5. At the Grammy Awards in 1996 he gathered an armful of awards including, Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance. He ended that year with a major US hit, a cover version of Steve Miller’s ‘Fly Like An Eagle’ which featured in the movie Space Jam.
Despite being recorded over a period of three years, 1998’s Human Being was another polished collection of material, although it lacked any of the dramatic highlights found on the previous two albums. The record’s commercial performance, failing to break into the US Top 20, was a surprise and Seal subsequently maintained a fairly low profile. He returned in late 2003 with the third self-titled album of his career.
