Celebrity
Ella Mai Biography, Career, Awards & Net Worth)
Ella Mai is an English songwriter and singer born on the 3rd of November,1994 in London, England.
Her Jamaican mum named her after the American Jazz singer, Ella Fitzgerald.
Due to the nature of her mum’s work, Ella moved into New York at the age of 12 with her mum. She attended Queens High School of Teaching in Glen Oaks and in 2014, she entered the British and Irish Modern Music Institute, London.
Beginning of Ella Mai’s Career
In her adolescent period, Ella became addicted to Classical Jazz and this drove her into joining a music crew named ‘Arize’ in 2014. The crew participated in the season eleven of X Factor but didn’t succeed and so, they all separated. Howbeit, that did not deter Ella Mai from pursuing her dreams. She began uploading covers of songs sang by the likes of Drake and Kanye West on her Instagram account and in 2015, she uploaded her first EP which was a four track EP titled ‘Trouble’ on SoundCloud.
The EP got the attention of DJ Mustard who contacted her in August, 2015 and signed her into his label, 10 Summers Records and Interscope Records. She stated in an interview in 2018 that she was 20 when she started making her first EP.
She said,
“When I was making the EPs, I was 20, and now I’m almost 24. I’ve learned a lot, I’ve seen a lot, I’ve grown a lot,” she says. “I’m super proud of what we’ve been making. Even I’m like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know I could write like this”.
Ella Mai’s Songs
After her first EP, the singer who regards herself as a tomboy released ‘Time’ in February 2016 and in November, she released her second EP ‘Change’ which has five tracks. While music lovers were still enjoying her second EP, the songwriter came up with a third EP in February, 2017 titled ‘Ready’, a 6 track EP. Ella who never planned to take things slowly dropped the music video of her song ‘Boo’d up’ in April, 2018.
Prior to the release of the music video, the song was already trending. In May same year, the song became top 10 songs in the US, it also got to number 5 at US Billboard Hot 100. Ella Mai toured with singer Kehlani on her SweetSexy Savage World Tour and also with Bruno Mars on his 24k Magic World Tour. She also toured with Ariana Grande in her Sweetener World Tour(European Leg) in 2019.
Ella finally made her debut album titled ‘Ella Mai’ on October 2018, the song which has 16 songs had Chris Brown, John Legend and H.E.R as guest appearances. In January 2019, she began her own tour.
In July 2019, the 27 years old singer performed a sketch on Nickelodeon’s ‘All That’ and in October, 2020, Ella released a single ‘Not Another Love Song’.
Ella Mai’s Influencers
The singer who is known for singing soul songs has revealed are influencers are Alicia Keys, Brandy, Lauryn Hill, Chris Brown, Destiny’s Child and Mariah Carey.
Ella Mai’s Awards/Nominations
In 2018, she won Best R&B/ Soul Female Artist at the Soul Train Music Awards
In 2018, she won the Ashford & Simpson Songwriters Award at the Soul Train Music Awards.
In same year, Ella’s song “Boo’d up” won R&B Song of the Year at the iHeart Radio Music Awards.
Still in 2018 she won R&B Artist of the Year at the iHeart Radio Music Awards.
In 2019, she won Best New R&B Artist at iHeart the Radio Music Awards.
In 2019, the singer’s “Boo’d up” won Winning Song at BMI R&B/Hip Hop Awards
Ella also won Top R& B Song, Top R&B Artist and Top R&B Female Artist at the BillBoard Music Awards in 2019
She won Coca-Cola Viewers Choice Awards at BET Awards
Out of three Grammy nominations, Ella won Best R&B song in 2018 Grammy Awards.
Ella Mai’s Boyfriend
Ella was linked to Tristan but the rumour died few days after it began. In 2018, she was rumoured to be dating basketball player, John Wall and then in 2020, she was linked with American basketball player, Jayson Tatum. This came after she was spotted in his house.
In an interview, she thanked Mustard for his contribution to her career.
She said,
“I used to tell people I appreciate Mustard so much, because he treated my debut album as if it was his. He put a lot of time into what we were doing. So now that we’re getting back into it, it’s like, “Cool. Where do we wanna go?” As the songs keep coming about — because I’m not finished yet — it’s almost that feeling again that we had with the debut album. It’s God’s given gift that we met each other, because I honestly can’t thank him enough, even if it’s for advice. The music is incredible.”
Talking about her album, Ella Mai revealed her brother helped her out as he is a good writer.
In her words,
“I remember calling my brother, cause my brother is a really good writer, and I said to him “Listen, I have these words and I wanna do skits on my album and I want you to help me write some of the stuff.” Some of them were definitions, but others of them were a couple sentences, so I sat there on the phone with my brother and we wrote them out together and that’s how the skits came about. But yeah, I’m just very big on storytelling and I like to feel when I read something that there’s a good introduction, there’s a good middle piece and there’s a good climax and ending, so that’s basically what we went for”.
The singer was featured in Wizkid’s “Made in Lagos” album which was released in 2020. Speaking about the album before its release, Ella Mai disclosed that she was very excited to be a part of it adding that she loves the song. She revealed this after a fan asked how she feels about the collaboration with Wizkid in a question and session on Twitter.
Ella is a fan of Arsenal Football Club.
