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Paloma Faith
Paloma Faith performing in 2010
Background information
Birth name	Paloma Faith Blomfield
Genres	Soul, pop, jazz
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, actress
Instrument	Vocals
Years active	2009–present
Labels	Epic
Website	palomafaith.com

Paloma Faith (born Paloma Faith Blomfield; 21 July 1985) is a British singer-songwriter and actress. In 2009, she released her debut single "Stone Cold Sober" and her debut album, Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?, which was certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. Her album stayed within the top 40 album charts for over forty weeks. The album has spawned five singles: "Stone Cold Sober", "New York", title track "Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?", "Upside Down" and "Smoke & Mirrors". Faith has also recorded the theme song to the 2010 British film 4.3.2.1 and appeared on the charity record, "I Put a Spell on You". Faith made her feature film debut in the 2007 remake of St Trinian's. She has since appeared in two more feature films, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Dread. In March 2010, Faith revealed that she is working on a second album.

Early life

Faith was born in Hackney, London to a Spanish father and an English mother who split up when Faith was two years old. Faith was raised by her mother in Stoke Newington. As a child, Faith was encouraged to dance by her mother and she took weekly ballet classes in Dalston.

After completing her A-Levels, Faith went on to study for a degree in contemporary dance at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, which Faith describes as "the worst experience of life". Faith then went on to study for an MA in theatre directing at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, funding her studies by working various part-time jobs, which included; a sales assistant at Agent Provocateur, a singer in a burlesque cabaret, a life model and a magician's assistant.

Music career

Faith's first foray into music began when she mimicked famous soul and jazz singers including Etta James and Billie Holiday, whom she admired and cites as influences for her own work.

Faith met her managers Jamie Binns and Christian Wåhlberg of Lateral Management in 2007. Binns had been tipped off by the producer Peanut, a client who had recently worked with Faith in his studio and been suitably impressed. He met up with Faith shortly afterwards and was "completely blown away", later saying: "I wasn't sure what this girl was going to do - she was an actress and a singer - but there was just something about her in that artistic realness that when I came out of the meeting I called Christian and said, 'We have to do something with this girl!'" Although Faith had been looking for a manager, she was still wary about entering into a formal agreement with Binns and Wåhlberg. She instead wanted to build their relationship before any contracts were signed. The managers spent six months to a year helping Faith with the A&R process, setting up sessions, and guiding and advising her before Faith was officially signed to Lateral Management.

During her time at college, Faith worked in a pub where the manager asked her to front his band, which they later called 'Paloma and the Penetrators'. During a performance with the band at a cabaret show, Faith was scouted by an A&R man from Epic Records, who invited Faith to sing for the manager of the label. Twenty minutes into the audition, Faith asked the manager to turn his phone off and when he refused, she walked out. Epic A&R Joanna Charrington told HitQuarters "When she played a showcase for us it was clear that she was a star but the material was a bit generic. She didn't have the hit songs." Not being one hundred percent convinced the label executives decided to wait. During this time Charrington regularly checked Faith's Myspace page "to see if she had something that had a special direction or sound." After several months her attention was eventually piqued by "Broken Doll", which she thought was a well-crafted song with a "fantastic chorus and brilliant lyrics." Charrington told Epic managing director Nick Raphael "I think we should get this girl back in. She sounds like she is getting it now. We can help her get the songs." Faith revealed in an interview that the manager called her and offered her a contract saying he had seen many acts since and none had been as memorable as her. Faith turned down an opportunity to join Amy Winehouse's band and she began to write and perform her own songs.

Faith's first recognised work was the song "It's Christmas (And I Hate You)", which she recorded as a duet with singer-songwriter, Josh Weller in 2008. Faith's music is influenced by soul and jazz and her singing style has been compared favourably to those of Amy Winehouse and Duffy.

2009–10: Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?

Faith released her debut single, "Stone Cold Sober", in mid-2009 and it reached Nº17 on the UK Singles Chart. Faith's second single, "New York" was released in September 2009. The song made its peak position in early October, peaking at Nº15 on the UK Singles Chart. Faith then released her debut album, Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?, on 28 September 2009. Faith wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album in the UK, Sweden and America and recorded it entirely in London. It debuted at Nº14 on the UK Albums Chart and later peaked at Nº9, it remained in the chart for sixteen weeks. The album became BBC Radio 2's 'Album of the Week' from the 19 September 2009. In the same year, Faith appeared as a guest vocalist on Basement Jaxx's Scars album and on American hip hop artist, MF Doom's, album, Born Like This. Faith released her third single, the album's title track, "Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?" on 21 December 2009. The song did not perform as well as Faith's previous singles and failed to reach the top twenty. It peaked at Nº64 in January 2010. In March 2010, Faith released her fourth single, "Upside Down", which peaked at Nº55 in the UK. To promote the album, Faith went on her first tour, featuring dates in the UK, Germany and France.

On 4 November 2009, Faith announced her first headlining tour of the UK and Ireland starting on 17 March 2010. The Times described the tour as being "full of theatrical artifice, but based on the rock-solid foundation of 's sensational singing voice and a personality that sparkled like a rough diamond". Faith performed a live set for the BBC's Radio 2 Introduces... and gave an interview to the station's host, Dermot O'Leary. Faith also appeared on current events programme This Week discussing her views on the British education system with Michael Portillo. During this month she also appeared as a guest on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, performed the song "Upside Down" on The Hollyoaks Music Show, and performed her single "New York" on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. She also appeared on the BBC's Later with Jools Holland, recorded on 13 October 2009, and his live Hootenanny on 31 December 2009. Faith performed at numerous festivals throughout that summer, including T4 on the Beach. "Stone Cold Sober" was used as the backing track for a Rimmel commercial starring Lily Cole and the B-side, "I Just Wait", was used in a UK television alcohol awareness advert. Samsung's Corby mobile phone TV commercial featured Faith's "Technicolour" song. Faith became involved in an album artwork competition with BBC Blast in November 2009, in which teenagers won the chance to work alongside leading artists, photographers and music industry professionals to create new publicity artwork for the singer.

During an interview with Digital Spy in March 2010, Faith revealed that she is working on a second album. She also revealed that if she continues to make losses for her record label they will drop her. Faith's manager subsequently refuted any suggestion that her contract with the label was under threat, saying that, on the contrary, debut album UK sales of 500,000 without a hit single is an impressive foundation for a long-term career, and Sony are "smart enough" to recognise that and are 110% behind her. Faith, along with Adam Deacon and Bashy, recorded the theme song to the 2010 British film 4.3.2.1. The track, titled "Keep Moving", was released on 28 May 2010. In the same month, Faith performed at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival with the The Guy Barker Orchestra. The performance was broadcast on BBC Radio 2. In June 2010, it was announced that Faith would re-release an updated version of "New York" featuring rapper Ghostface Killah. The single was released on 1 August 2010. Faith released a live EP album following an appearance at the 2010 iTunes Festival. The album charted at number 11 on the iTunes top 200 albums. Faith revealed in a September interview that she would be releasing her new single "Smoke & Mirrors" in October 2010. The track was her final single from her debut album and its video was uploaded to YouTube.

2011–present: Second Studio Album

In January 2011, Faith was nominated for "British Female Solo Artist" at the 2011 BRIT Awards. At the ceremony, Faith performed "Forget You" alongside Cee Lo Green. Faith appears on the charity single "Hard Times" alongside Plan B and Elton John. During an interview with Popjustice, Faith revealed her second album would contain more "agony and suffering." The singer also hoped the album would be done with one producer as she wanted a "solid piece of work." She explained "I love the beautiful side of things like that Tom Waitsy, Rufus Wainwrighty, Ed Harcourt sort of stuff, and in contrast I like all the OutKast production, Gnarls Barkley and 'Beggin' and all that sort of sound. Contemporary but with a nod to the past. But you never know. You might just meet someone and something else would make sense." In July 2011, Faith revealed her frustrations about releasing the follow up to Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?. She did not know when the album was going to be completed and said the process was slow. She told Kristy Kelly of Digital Spy, "The album's not finished yet and I'm not sure when it will be. If I had my way it would be out tomorrow, but there are so many other people involved that nothing happens quickly." Faith also admitted being signed to a major record label made her feel under pressure to be instantly successful.

Acting career

In 2006, Faith made her primetime television acting debut in the series Mayo. In 2007, Faith appeared in an episode of the BBC police drama HolbyBlue, and in the same year Faith made her feature film acting debut as Andrea in St Trinian's. In 2009, Faith appeared in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as Sally, the girlfriend of the Devil (played by Tom Waits). She also appeared in horror film Dread as Clara Thornhill, and in the video for Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip's song, "The Beat That My Heart Skipped". Faith has said that she was able to attend movie auditions during promotion for her debut album, in the hope that she lands a role once all of her album commitments are over. In August 2010, Faith appeared in Channel 4's series Coming Up. Faith will appear in the forthcoming short film, A Nice Touch with Dougray Scott.

Discography

• Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful? (2009)

Filmography

References

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6. ^ Sathiabalan, S. Indra (29 October 2009). "Paloma Faith says her experiences in life have Enriched her career as a singer". The Sun Daily. Retrieved 18 February 2010.
7. ^ "Interview with Christian Wåhlberg". HitQuarters. 2 May 2011. Retrieved 29 September 2011. Cite error: The named reference "hitquarters" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
8. ^ "Interview with Jamie Binns". HitQuarters. 18 April 2011. Retrieved 29 September 2011.
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15. "New York Chart positions". Chart Stats. Retrieved 24 February 2010.
16. ^ Diver, Mike (16 September 2009). "Paloma Faith Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful? Review". BBC. Retrieved 18 February 2010.
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External links

• Official website
• Paloma Faith on Twitter
• Paloma Faith on Facebook
• Paloma Faith discography at Discogs
• Paloma Faith at IMDb
• True Faith – The Paloma Faith Interview, Paloma Faith's first interview on Wordpress blog, VonPipMusicalExpress
• BBC Blast – Paloma Faith publicity artwork competition at BBC Blast
• Paloma Faith live photos Jan 2007 by Bartolomy

Template:Persondata

• Use dmy dates from September 2010
• 1985 births
• Blue-eyed soul singers
• English female singers
• English film actors
• English people of Spanish descent
• Living people
• People from Hackney
• Alumni of the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
• People from Stoke Newington