Ella Mai Biography

The English singer and songwriter Ella Mai was born in 1994 in London. Ella’s mother, a lover of American jazz, named her after the famed Ella Fitzgerald, and so it’s little surprise that Mai showed an interest in music from an early age. At the age of twelve, Ella moved with her family to New York City, where she spent the rest of her teenage years before then returning to London to launch a career as a performer.

After studying at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute, Ella decided to enter as part of a trio on The X Factor reality competition series. The group didn’t advance on the show, but—undeterred—Mai returned to writing, recording, and posting her original music to SoundCloud. Eventually, her talents garnered the attention of Interscope Records, and Mai signed with the label in 2015.

Ella Mai’s debut, the six-track EP Time, arrived in early 2016. While it didn’t make it to the charts, it set the stage for the EP Change, which would be a top ten R&B hit, and then the EP Ready, Mai’s first to reach into the top forty on the mainstream charts in the United States. In the meantime, Ella continued writing and preparing for her debut album, Ella Mai, which arrived in 2018.

On the strength of the album’s single “Boo’d Up,” Ella Mai was the breakthrough the artist had been looking for. It reached the number one spot on the US R&B charts and the number five spot on the mainstream charts in the United States. The follow-up single, “Trip,” fared equally well, and around the same time, Ella recorded the single “Whatchamacallit,” featuring Chris Brown, giving her another top ten R&B hit.

Ella Mai is an artist on the rise and one to watch in the coming years. Her latest single, “Shot Clock” arrived in 2019 to coincide with a headlining tour. Thus far, Mai has won an American Music Award, a Grammy Award, and a BRIT Award for Best R&B/Soul Female Artist, Best New R&B Artist, and for the single “Boo’d Up.”