Estelle Is Looking Forward to Performing With Nu Deco Ensemble

"It's light," Estelle tells New Times about her forthcoming sixth album, which will be released sometime in early 2025, her first in nearly seven years. "I've been working on it since 2017. The average is three years between albums. This took longer. I wanted to wait until people were ready to hear it. Now we need light more than ever, and I believe everyone has light in them."

That lightness she aspires toward in music also comes out in conversation for Estelle, especially when she reminisces about when she first knew she wanted to be a singer. "I was 7, and I sang in church with my brother," she shares. "When we finished, I was like, I can do this. As I got older, my mother was skeptical. She warned me, 'Have a backup; it's a fickle industry.'"

Estelle heeded her mother's warning.

"I worked every job in this industry. I was a journalist. I put together events. I directed and arranged."

Her 2004 debut album, The 18th Day, with its mix of soul, R&B, and hip-hop, did well in her native UK. A few years later, in 2008, she shot to international fame with the top ten hit "American Boy," a song that was written and partially recorded right here in Miami.

"I was in Miami hanging at the beach, being chatted up by Cuban guys. I was in my mid-twenties, kicking it, getting flirted with by beautiful men," she remembers.

She didn't waste any time writing the lyrics, a habit she continues to this day.
"When songwriting is challenging, you're overthinking it. Get out of the way. Trying to be too intellectual gets in the way of the art." As an example, she points to the creative process behind her newest single, "Fire," which will eventually be on her upcoming album. "That song is about personal transformation and the love I desire. I pray a lot, so to a degree, the songwriting is not me. Whatever comes out, I don't judge it. I record it on my phone as a sketch. Then, when a producer has it, I start coloring in more lyrics. A little blue here, some orange, some pink."

Miami will hear some of Estelle's colorful catalogue when she performs with the Nu Deco Ensemble on Friday, December 13, at the Adrienne Arsht Center.

"I loved what Nu Deco did with Luke James," she says of the local orchestra's collaboration with the R&B singer. "It was so beautiful watching them make a new body of work by adding strings, horns, a piano. They made the music different and elevated it. I'm excited to see what they do to mine."

To prepare for the show, Nu Deco and Estelle are having a week of rehearsals. Before that, they'd been discussing the musical arrangements long distance. "I said embellish it. Make it good. Nothing is too far. We'll do all the songs you know and love."

Of course, among the songs she'll sing is "American Boy," the hit she always has to perform whenever she takes the stage. Still, no matter how many times she has to sing, "Take me on a trip, I'd like to go someday/Take me to Chicago, San Francisco Bay," Estelle says she never grows tired of it.

"Every time I sing it, someone is seeing it for the first time. There's always someone standing there in full awe or singing it wrapped around their friends or someone having a ball," she says. "That keeps it fresh for me. I always have fun singing it."

Nu Deco Ensemble Featuring Estelle. 8 p.m. Friday, December 13, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 305-949-6722; arshtcenter.org. Tickets cost $50 to $130.