At 22 and with little over a year in the music industry under her belt, Skye Newman is already completely sure of what she wants to get out of it. “A James Bond song,” the south-east Londoner says without taking a beat, in answer to my question about ultimate career goals. It’s not cockiness —spend five seconds with Newman’s singing voice and you’ll not only see why it makes total sense for her, but also why it’s genuinely possible she might achieve it one day.
Newman has plenty of endorsements to back up her ambition, however nascent her career may be. She’s earned herself consistent accolades and comparisons with artists including Adele and Amy Winehouse, something that still flabbergasts her (“But it would be silly not to take that [compliment] with every bit of happiness,” she says) as well as two Brit award nominations. Her first two singles charted in the UK top 20, making her the first British female solo artist to achieve such a feat in more than a decade. SE9 Part 1, her debut EP — named after the postcode she grew up in — reached a peak of 18 on the UK albums chart, staying in the top 100 for seven weeks in total.
