Anne-Marie | |
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Birth name | Anne-Marie Nicholson |
Born |
Essex, England |
7 April 1990
Genres | |
Occupation(s) |
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Years active | 2013–present |
Labels | |
Associated acts | |
Website | iamannemarie |
Anne-Marie Nicholson (born 7 April 1990), known professionally as Anne-Marie, is an English singer and songwriter. She has attained four charting singles on the UK Singles Chart, with Clean Bandit's "Rockabye", featuring Sean Paul, peaking at number one, Rudimental's "Rumour Mill" with Will Heard, reaching number 67, "Do It Right", reaching number 90 and "Alarm", reaching number 16. On 17 October 2016, "Alarm" reached 100 million streams on Spotify.
Anne-Marie was born in Somerset on 7 April 1990 as Anne-Marie Nicholson. Her father was born in Ireland, while her mother is from Essex. She appeared in two West End productions as a child—Les Misérables when she was six, and Whistle Down the Wind alongside a young Jessie J when she was 12. In addition, Nicholson has practised shotokan since she was nine, won Double Gold in the Funakoshi Shotokan Karate Association World Championships 2002, Gold and Silver in the Funakoshi Shotokan Karate Association World Championships 2007 and Gold in the United Kingdom Traditional Karate Federation National Championships and credits this with teaching her "discipline and focus – basically everything I need for this career" but does not have time to practise it as frequently due to touring restraints.
Anne-Marie cut a solo demo for Rocket Records in 2013 called "Summer Girl". Her solo career was curtailed in order for her to develop herself as an artist; in the interim, she guested on tracks by Magnetic Man, Gorgon City and Raized by Wolves, after which she caught the attention of Rudimental; one of their vocalists left, and so they asked Anne-Marie to replace her. She featured on four tracks on their album We the Generation, of which two were co-features with Dizzee Rascal and Will Heard; the latter, "Rumour Mill", reached number 67 on the UK Singles Chart. She spent two years touring alongside them. Her debut EP, Karate, went out on their then-new label Major Tom's; two singles were released from it, "Karate" and "Gemini", which led to Nicholson gigging as a solo artist.