Nao

Nao is one of the most distinctive modern R&B singers, a jazz-trained soprano whose hallmark fluttering upper register is complemented with a sneaky-smooth lower register. She was content to remain in the background and teach singing until the mid-2010s, when she and fellow producers such as GRADES, LOXE, and A.K. Paul began to cook up a mix of airy ballads and off-center grooves that sounded progressive and accessible yet willfully out of step with commercial sounds. Terming her hybrid sound "wonky funk," she gained a foothold in 2015 with a pair of well-received EPs and a featured role on Disclosure's "Superego." She was already a MOBO nominee by the time she hit the Top 20 of the U.K. album chart with For All We Know, a full-length debut that led to BBC Sound of 2016 and Brit Awards nominations. Saturn (2018), no sophomore slump, was nominated for the Mercury Prize and a Grammy for Best Urban Contemporary Album. Since topping the U.K. R&B chart with the emotionally complex And Then Life Was Beautiful (2021), she has issued Jupiter (2025), a light-seeking sequel to her second LP. Born in Nottingham, England and raised in East London, Nao (Neo Jessica Joshua) began playing piano in early childhood and, as a young teenager, started taking singing seriously. She attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama to study vocal jazz and upon graduation spent a few years teaching singing in South London. Nao wrote and recorded as a member of a vocal group, the Boxettes, performed at Glastonbury Festival with Shlomo's Vocal Orchestra, and took on some background vocal work before she made her first moves as a solo artist. Material uploaded to SoundCloud in 2014 attracted label interest, but Nao opted to establish her own outlet, Little Tokyo, with So Good, an EP released that October with an A.K. Paul collaboration as its title and lead track. In May 2015, just after Mura Masa had released the Nao collaboration "Firefly," the second Nao EP, February 15, was available. Though the sleek, progressive, and occasionally d