Lianne La Havas — The enchanting neosoul diva to perform at Pohoda 2019
Pohoda 2019 will host the British soul singer Lianne La Havas. Lianne won the iTunes Album of the Year Award and was nominated to Mercury Prize for her debut Is Your Love Big Enough?. In addition, she has had nominations for the MOBO Awards, as well as nominations for the BBC Sound of Brit Awards, and Grammy Awards. Her excellent voice with a unique colour immediately astounded celebrities such as Prince, Alicia Keys, and Justine Vernon (Bon Iver). During the tour with Bon Iver, the American media called her the most remarkable voice since Adele. The concert of Lianne La Havas of the NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert is one of the five most watched in the history of this popular series (and Adele follows in the chart). Last summer, we saw her solo performance live on the main stage at Sziget and we are very pleased that her breathtaking voice will be heard also at the Trenčín Airport.
26. March 2019
The daughter to a Greek father and Jamaican mother, Lianne was born in the late 1980s in London. She was immersed in music since her early childhood and was influenced by her parents’ extremely diverse music tastes. Lianne began singing at the age of 7, and wrote her first song at the age of 11. She learned the basics of guitar and piano from her father, and it is the excellent guitar play that decorates her performances, along with the enchanting voice. However, she didn’t learn to play guitar until she was 18. She started her professional career as a vocalist for Paloma Faith. Her own pieces were discovered on MySpace, but three more years passed until she released her first EP Lost & Found.
Her opening track, “No Room For Doubt,” featured Willy Mason. On the day of the release of the album, Lianne also appeared on Later… with Jools Holland, a programme that also featured band Bon Iver. Justine Vernon (singer) was so fascinated by her performance that he called her the next day and asked her to support them on their North American tour. The song Lost & Found also became the first single of her debut Is Your Love Big Enough?. PopMatters rated the album 9 out of 10 and commented that it isn’t often that audiences are given so much all at once from such a young artist. She has been praised by Los Angeles Times and New Your Times, Boston Globe, and Q and Clash magazines. The album peaked on the 4th place of the British charts; iTunes called it the album of the year, and it received nominations for the Mercury Prize and Ivor Novello Awards.
Shortly after that, she supported Alicia Keys at MTV ʽCrashesʼ Manchester, and performed at Glastonbury and Isle of Wight. Another star that was captivated by Lianne in the early beginnings of her career was Prince. He invited her to collaborate on the album Art Official Age and played a gig in her living room in London. She also appeared on an Alt-Jʼs album on the track “Warm Foothills” and collaborated with Aqualung on the song “Eggshells”. In the summer of 2015, she released her second album inspired by her roots called Blood. There, she expanded her genre range to neo soul, jazz, and R&B, and she was likened to Lauryn Hill and Jill Scott. The album contains beautiful songs such as “Unstoppable”, “Green & Gold”, “What You Donʼt Do”, and “Wonderful”. The album topped the charts the Netherlands, was second in sales charts in the UK, and it earned Lianne a Grammy nomination. In 2017, she did a cover of “Starry Starry Night” by Don McLean for the film Loving Vincent that tells the story of Vincent van Gogh. Another of her great covers is the one of Aretha Franklinʼs “Say a Little Prayer” that has recently appeared in This Is Us. Lianne is currently working on new songs. In little more than a hundred days, this fabulous singer with a velvety voice will play an intimate yet incredibly powerful solo at Pohoda 2019.