Seal (musician)

• 1. Introduction

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  Seal, born Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel, has sold more than 20 million albums or singles. The British singer, songwriter and record producer holds three Brit Awards, four Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award. He also won two Ivor Novello Awards for Best Song Musically and Lyrically, one for "Killer" and one for "Crazy".

  Yet his formal training was in architecture. He completed a two-year diploma and then drifted through assorted jobs around London. How does someone with that background end up in a recording studio? What does it take for a song to find its audience long after it first appears? And what happens when a producer simply cannot stop tinkering with a record?

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• 2. Road To Killer

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  On the 19th of February 1963, a boy was born at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London. His mother, Adebisi Ogundeji, was Nigerian, and his father, Francis Samuel, was Brazilian. He was raised by a foster family in Westminster.

  During the 1980s he sang briefly in local clubs and bars. In 1987 he joined Push, a British funk band, and toured with them in Japan. In Thailand he spent a while with a blues band. He then left that group and travelled across India on his own.

  Back in England, he slept on the couch of his friend Julian Bunster, who was working as a model. Every so often Seal would ask him, "Do I sing well?" Bunster would usually answer that he sang better than most current artists.

  Then came the producer Adamski, who took lyrics and vocals from Seal for a single called "Killer". That track eventually reached number one in the UK.

  Seal signed to ZTT Records, and Trevor Horn produced his self-titled debut album, released in 1991. Two versions of it circulate. One is the original premix, and the other is a more common release with an updated mix. The pressure to deliver a produced single rushed the final edit. Seal also blames Horn's "inability to let go".

  Critics welcomed the record. Its singles included "Crazy", "Future Love Paradise" and Seal's own version of "Killer". In 1991 "Crazy" became an international hit, reaching number two on the UK Singles Chart and number seven on the US Billboard Hot 100.

  The 1992 Brit Awards took place at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, and Seal stole the show. He won Best British Male, Best British Video for "Killer" and Best British Album for Seal. That made him the first artist in the event's history to win three awards in one night.

  A second album with Horn was already on the way, and it would arrive in 1994.

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• 3. Kiss From A Rose

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  Number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 was as high as "Prayer for the Dying" climbed in the United States. It was a minor pop hit from Seal's second album, which also carried the single "Newborn Friend". Like its predecessor, the self-titled record topped the UK Albums Chart. It later earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year.

  A third single from the album, "Kiss from a Rose", did only modest business when it first came out. Its fortunes changed after it was included on film soundtracks, among them The NeverEnding Story III and Batman Forever. The version on Batman Forever was a remix.

  In late August 1995, the song reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It became his best-performing single in the American market. In the UK it peaked at number four.

  At the Grammys in 1996, "Kiss from a Rose" won both Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

  The song's afterlife did not end there. When the 1994 album turned 30, a deluxe edition in 2024 added an alternate version of the track.

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• 4. Setbacks And Detours

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  In 1997 Seal parted ways with ZTT Records and signed with Warner Bros. Records. The album that followed, Human Being, came out in 1998. It grew out of a turbulent stretch of his life, which included a split from Horn and a later reconciliation with him.

  Critics panned the record on release. Even so, the RIAA certified it gold just two months after it appeared. It produced two singles, "Human Beings" and "Lost My Faith".

  In 2001 fans were waiting for an album announced as Togetherland. After a long postproduction period, it was cancelled. The official explanation was that Seal felt it did not make the grade. Other reports claimed the label rejected it because producers doubted it would sell.

  One single did escape. "This Could Be Heaven" was released in the US and appeared on the soundtrack of The Family Man. Since December 2006, Seal has said he intends to release cuts from the shelved album as streaming downloads.

  His voice still travelled widely in those years. In 2002 he co-wrote and sang the hit "My Vision" with Jakatta. He recorded a successful duet called "Les Mots" with the French singer Mylène Farmer. He also lent vocals to "You Are My Kind", the fourth track on Santana's album Shaman.

  Seal IV arrived in 2003. It never matched the sales of his first two albums, but it brought him back into view in the United States and continental Europe. Among its singles was "Love's Divine", released in 2004, which became a big hit in several European countries.

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• 5. Concert Halls And Studios

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  On the 6th of July 2004, Seal played the Olympia Theatre in Paris. The recording of that show came out about a year later as a CD and DVD package called Live in Paris. The same year brought a greatest-hits collection, Best 1991-2004, with covers of "Walk On By" and Echo & the Bunnymen's "Lips Like Sugar". One edition added a bonus disc of acoustic versions.

  In June 2005 he recorded a concert in Düsseldorf, Germany, inside a historic steel mill. The venue was the Altes Kesselhaus, which means "old boiler house". Released in 2006 as One Night to Remember, the performance includes Brahms' Lullaby, sung first in German and then in English.

  This time there was no standard band. A full orchestra and choir of 52 musicians backed him. The DVD also includes a making-of documentary.

  System reached the UK on the 12th of November 2007 and the US a day later. Seal called it more dance-oriented, a return to the roots of his first album. Its first single, "Amazing", came out on the 25th of September 2007 and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. On "Wedding Day" he sang a duet with his then-wife, the model Heidi Klum.

  That December he performed "Amazing" at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, alongside the Spice Girls and will.i.am. Earlier he had sung "Amazing" and the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" at the Royal Variety Performance.

  Soul followed on the 3rd of November 2008. It gathers 11 soul classics produced by David Foster, and its first single was a cover of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come". A compilation called Hits appeared on the 4th of December 2009 with two new tracks, "I Am Your Man" and "Thank You".

  Seal 6: Commitment followed in September 2010, said to be inspired by Klum. A second collection of classic soul covers, Soul 2, arrived on the 7th of November 2011 through Reprise Records.

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• 6. Causes And Controversy

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  In April 1992, Wembley Stadium hosted the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, five months after Mercury died. Seal appeared with the surviving members of Queen and sang their 1986 hit "Who Wants to Live Forever". He then joined the other acts for the all-star finale, "We Are the Champions".

  Thomas Curtis-Horsfall of Smooth Radio called the performance "one of the standout moments" of the concert. He said it left everyone in the arena close to tears.

  That same year, Seal contributed an exclusive track, "Crazy (If I Was Trev Mix)", to the compilation Red Hot + Dance. George Michael and Madonna also appeared on it. All proceeds went to AIDS charities.

  On the 15th of November 2014, he joined the Band Aid 30 group at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London. The pop acts recorded a new version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" to raise money for the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

  On the 10th of March 2012, he shared a stage with Kanye West, the Soul Rebels Brass Band and Snoop Dogg. The occasion was an after-party for Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans. The charity event raised money to build homes for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

  One appearance went very differently. In October 2011, Seal played at an event in Grozny, Chechnya, that turned into a birthday celebration for the Chechen president, Ramzan Kadyrov. The actress Hilary Swank, the actor Jean-Claude Van Damme and the violinist Vanessa-Mae also attended.

  The Human Rights Foundation says it wrote to invitees beforehand, pointing to Kadyrov's record and asking them to decline. Human Rights Watch said it was inappropriate for stars to get paid to party with him.

  Seal declined to apologise. From his Twitter account he told people to "leave me out of your politics". He was reported to have been paid $500,000 for singing at the party.

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• 7. Family And Face

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  In February 2004, Seal began dating the German model Heidi Klum. She had just announced both a pregnancy and the end of her relationship with Flavio Briatore, an Italian Formula One team manager. Klum gave birth to a daughter in New York City in May 2004, with Seal at her side.

  Klum has stated emphatically that Seal is the girl's father and her only father figure. Seal has praised Briatore for keeping his distance.

  On the 23rd of December 2004, Seal proposed in a quinzee, a snow shelter, that he had built on a glacier in Whistler, British Columbia. The couple married on the 10th of May 2005, on a beach in Mexico near his home on Costa Careyes.

  Every year they renewed their vows on their anniversary. Speaking in 2010, Seal described an hour spent on a private beach at sunset, reading vows with the children. In November 2009 Klum took his surname and became legally known as Heidi Samuel. Late that year Seal adopted her daughter, whose surname then changed to Samuel.

  They had three more children. Two sons, Henry and Johan, were born in September 2005 and November 2006. A daughter, Lou, was born in October 2009.

  In June 2009, on tour for Soul, Seal remarked that it was nice to be in the papers for something other than his marriage. In February 2011, Klum said she had known he would be a good father from the first time she met him.

  On the 22nd of January 2012, after nearly seven years of marriage, the couple announced their separation. Klum filed for divorce on the 6th of April 2012. It was finalized on the 14th of October 2014.

  Since 2021 he has been with Laura Strayer, his former personal assistant. His brother, Jeymes Samuel, who records as the Bullitts, is also a singer-songwriter.

  The prominent scarring on Seal's face comes from discoid lupus erythematosus, a type of lupus that affects the skin and leaves large scars.

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• 8. Television And Reinvention

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  In 2012, Seal was one of four vocal coaches in the first season of the Australian version of The Voice. His act Karise Eden won the series. When season two debuted on the 7th of April 2013, he was back, and this time his singer Harrison Craig won.

  He skipped season three in 2014. The Nine Network said he would take a break to focus on music and material for a new album. On the 8th of November 2016, the network announced his return for 2017, alongside Delta Goodrem. He replaced Jessie J after a three-year hiatus.

  That album took years to arrive. Horn was producing it, and it was first titled Let Yourself. In April 2013, Seal said on Twitter that it would be out around June, which did not happen. It was later retitled Beautifully Scarred. Horn said in February 2015 that it was nearly finished.

  On the 10th of September 2015, Seal announced that the album, now named 7, would be released on the 6th of November 2015.

  On the 20th of March 2016, Fox aired Tyler Perry's musical version of The Passion, in which Seal played Pontius Pilate. In November 2017 he released Standards, produced by the classical crossover composer Nick Patrick. It received a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.

  Later work turned playful. Seal competed on the second season of The Masked Singer as "Leopard" and finished fourth. In 2021 he collaborated with Claptone on "Just A Ghost". In 2022 he appeared in the film Me Time, performing at a party. He also launched a limited-edition Leica Q2 camera called Dawn, limited to 500 units.

  For his 2023 North American tour, Horn served as musical director and also opened the show with his band, The Buggles. In 2025 Seal sang a parody of "Kiss From a Rose" in a Mountain Dew commercial for Super Bowl LIX.

  On the 14th of February 2025 he released a new song, "All I Know is Now", produced by Horn.

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