Lianne La Havas Artistfacts

August 23, 1989
Born Lianne Barnes, her stage name is an adaptation derived from her Greek father Henry Vlahavas's surname.
She is mixed race having been born to a Greek father and Jamaican mother.
La Havas' parents split when she was two. When her mother got a job as a postwoman, young Lianne started spending the majority of her time with her grandparents who lived around the corner. Her grandmother was blind as a result of laser eye surgery that went wrong.
La Havas' first experience of music was her grandpa's favorite radio station. She recalled to NME: "My grandfather used to put on Capital Gold FM really low and keep it on all night. I remember hearing some of the most amazing songs of my life on that station. It felt warm – and it still feels that way now that I'm an adult."
Lianne's multi-instrumentalist father taught her the piano and the basics of guitar and she fell into performing music at the age of 13 when she auditioned for her school's choir.
Asked by MTV News what she was doing before pursuing a full-time music career, La Havas replied: "I was an art student and then I started making music. I briefly worked in a bar. Painting and sculpture and sketching and all that kind of stuff. That's what I used to do."
A friend of La Havas', singer-songwriter Allan Rose, introduced the young singer to multiple people in the music industry. One of them, Paloma Faith, recruited La Havas to sing backing vocals on her tour.
La Havas made her television debut on the October 21, 2011 episode of BBC's night show Later… with Jools Holland. The program also featured Wisconsin folk rock band Bon Iver and after watching her performance La Havas was chosen by the band's leader, Justin Vernon, to open for the group on their North American tour.
La Havas' 2012 debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough, was nominated for the Mercury Prize and named iTunes Album of the Year.
After Prince covered La Havas' track "Lost & Found" he invited the songstress to jam with him at his Paisley Park studio in Minneapolis. She provided vocals on the Purple One's Art Official Age track "Clouds" and was also a featured vocalist alongside him on a November 2014 episode of Saturday Night Live.