Meet Cleo Sol: your artists' favourite artist

Cleo Sol’s probably never appeared in your Instagram timeline, TikTok ‘for you’, and much less in the news headlines you read. However, I assure you she has always been there in a way. She is one of your artists’ favourite artists, from being added to Barack Obama’s 2024 Summer Playlist, to having her song ‘Sunshine’ sang by Dua Lipa twice, both during your Radio 1 Live Lounge performance, back in May, and at her The Royal Albert Hall’s concert in October. As Lipa introduced: “And it's a song by a fellow London girl, her name is Cleo Sol. And the song is called Sunshine. (...) It's just one of those songs that just moves me every time I hear it, and I felt like tonight would just be a very fitting moment to sing that for you guys tonight. So I hope you guys love it as much as I do”. Cleo Sol is also followed by SZA and Cynthia Erivo on her Instagram.

About her

Sol was born in 1990, whose birth name is Cleopatra Zvezdana Nikolic, to a Jamaican father and a Spanish-Serbian mother who met in a jazz band. She started singing at clubs, then uploading songs to Myspace, and she was discovered in 2008 featuring on the single Tears by Tinie Tempah, but unfortunately interrupted her music career for five years, due to, as the singer and songwriter once revealed “I wasn’t being true to myself, and I was listening to everyone else’s advice on my career other than myself”.

After the hiatus, in 2018, Cleo Sol shared her EP Winter Songs, solidifying her music influences, namely a blend of R&B, neo-Jazz and vintage soul. 

Two years later, Cleo Sol released her debut studio album, Rose in the Dark, marking a new chapter in her music career, since it was considered as one of 2020's best albums by British magazines, bringing her to the spotlight. As she said in a rare interview: “I feel so lucky and blessed. I still walk around London every day talking to people, getting my coffee on my errands, and being inspired; it feels like I’m floating sometimes”.

The next year, she released her second studio album, titled ‘Mother’, on 20 August 2021, whose conducting wire theme was her own journey into motherhood. In this album, it became clear that Sol uses her music to reflect about the experiences she lived, almost as confessions in intimate conversations, which can give us a glimpse and remind us of the forever legend Sade.

Mother's brought a familiar sense of environment, as if we had access to all the thoughts she had during her pregnancy, since the moment she discovered her child and the following apprehensions until the birth, realizing not only the individual she was caring all this time, but the love too. And it all becomes even more special when looking at the album cover. We can see Cleo Sol holding her baby on a sofa and a photograph of her own mother hanging on the wall, almost like she sees an inspirational strength of a previous generation, allowing her to give continuity to the legacy she learned and be able to build her own family.

SAULT

Back in 2019, she also joined the indie-Soul collective, SAULT, together with her long-time collaborator and partner, producer Inflo. The group has already released 11 albums whose themes go back to Black dance music and political subjects, although it rarely sings live and gives interviews. In fact, the band has just released a new surprise album this Christmas, which reinforces the mysterious stereotype of SAULT.

Sol’s rise: 2023

2023 was such an important year to the singer, as she announced her third album, Heaven, about faith and life purpose, and, to her fans surprise, releasing her fourth, Gold, two weeks after. Both of them seemed to finally present herself to the world, a reclusive person that distances herself from the conventional hypervisibility of fame, but still a tireless artist.

In the same year, Sol performed at the Royal Albert Hall, soldering its capacity for two nights. “It gives me peace being honest and knowing that others relate [to my songs] and we’re all sort of on these similar journeys with different lives”, she confessed to the British magazine, DAZED. 

Recently, Cleo Sol announced her return to concerts, with three dates for next March, in New York City, which has even got SZA’s attention, as she wrote in one of Sol’s posts: “The way I’m leaving my own tour to come to this show and I don’t give damn”. 

My crystal ball may be a bit dreamy, but I think we should keep an eye on Cleo Sol, as her talent has not allowed her to reap the full rewards of what she can still become.