Natasha Bedingfield

With a number one single in America, over six million units shifted worldwide, Natasha Bedingfield is the UK’s biggest female pop star bar none.

Natasha took the US by storm last year with the first British chart topping hit by a female in almost twenty years. Vanity Fair singled her out as the spearhead of a new Britpop invasion; she became one of the faces of Gap (alongside Mia Farrow and Common); she jammed with her hero Prince at a private party;  Bono enlisted her in his (RED) campaign; and her song Unwritten proved to be the most played song on mainstream American radio last year.

Natasha blasted her way up the charts in 2004 with her typically outspoken take on the lifestyles of independent young women.  To critics and fans alike, Natasha was "The Single Girl". On her new album, the single girl is all about exploring relationships.

Taken from her forthcoming album, Pocketful Of Sunshine, Love Like This, Natasha’s first single featuring Sean Kingston, is a playful yet pointed representation of Natasha’s shifting priorities. “I want to make music that matches who I am. My first album was about independence and seizing the moment. I’m still very independent and I find it hard to let go of that freedom, but I’m in a different place now.  I’ve been dating, searching for a partner, looking for Mr Right… This album reflects those feelings and that journey.”

Recorded in Los Angeles, Natasha has co-written and co-produced the album, working with a stellar team of talent including Mike Elizondo of Eminem/Dre/50 Cent fame, Adam Levine, Greg Kirsten (Beck, Lily Allen) and previous collaborators (Steve Kipner, Andrew Frampton, Wayne Wilkins, Danielle Brisebois and Wayne Rodrigues), and long time Madonna collaborator Pat Leonard. “I lived right by the beach where I was working, so I could head straight into the studio every morning. The way I write is I brainstorm and jam it out, and it helps to have everything set up to capture the moment.”

Always a precocious talent with a noticeable lyrical edge, at 25 Natasha has emerged as a thoughtful and complex young woman. “I spent a year and a half in America. It was my first real time away from home, family and old friends. I think I’ve grown a lot,” she says.

Natasha was something of an overnight success in the UK and Europe, when her 2004 debut ‘Single’ was a smash hit. The follow up, ‘These Words’ and album, Unwritten, reached number one. Then America, for so long a no go zone for British talent, began to take an interest. “In the music world, America is the prize, the great coconut you win at the fair, but they really don’t care if you’ve been successful anywhere else, they want to know who you are and see what you can do for themselves,” explains Natasha. “I had to be willing to start over and prove myself from the ground up again. I traveled around with a guitarist to radio stations and small shows, a different state and three different cities every day for four or five months, performing for just ten or twenty people sometimes. It was really strange, singing to the smallest crowds I’d ever sung to, in the middle of nowhere, but it was extremely inspiring to realize that I was connecting with the audience in America and having girls come up and say, ‘I really hope you do well.’”

With nearly 2 million downloads of her single, Unwritten, Natasha became the first British female to score a no. 1 in the US Billboard pop chart since Kim Wilde and You Keep Me Hangin’ On, 19 years earlier. “I got to experience the American dream, the concept that you start out a nobody and make yourself into someone. Whereas my last album found me at the starting line where life was kind of like a blank page, “unwritten” so to speak, my new album contains my reflections of the real life I have experienced over the last few years. It’s been a wild ride!”

Never one to mouth empty platitudes, Natasha has a gift for creating pop music that does not sacrifice intelligence on the altar of universal appeal. “I love music that has thought put into it, and is not just formulaic. I hope that when someone listens to my songs they will discover a few different layers. At the same time, I want to communicate, and I don’t want to put up barriers. It is pop because it’s not elitist, it’s anthemic, it’s got structure to it and it’s easy to understand. Plus, I like to dance. I love lots of weird experimental music and sensitive singer-songwriters, but they are kind of hard to shake your arse to.”