Amelle Berrabah was born on 22 April 1984 in Aldershot in Hampshire, and is best known for being a former member of the girl group the Sugababes, replacing founding member Mutya Buena, who left the group in December 2005. She attended The Connaught School in Aldershot and the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, and it was there that she met her managers and formed the group Boo2, with her sister Samiya. In 2003 she won Top of the Pops magazine's Star Search, which gave her the chance to be the lead singer of a new group, but in 2006 she was brought in to replace Mutya Buena when she left Sugababes, having impressed their management when they saw her perform at an American showcase a few years earlier. The first single to feature Berrabah's vocals, 'Red Dress', entered the UK singles chart at number four, but because of the hastiness of the replacement, she could only re-record vocals for three of the tracks on the band's latest album 'Taller In More Ways', making the group a four-piece for this record only. They performed the 2007 Comic Relief single with fellow girl band, Girls Aloud, with 'Walk This Way' topping the UK charts. The first single from their album 'Change', the Dr. Luke-produced 'About You Now', topped the UK singles chart for four weeks, with the album becoming the group's second UK Albums Chart number one, giving them the top position on the singles and albums charts simultaneously. The group quickly began working on the follow-up to 'Change', and 'Catfights And Spotlights' was released in late 2008, but it was their lowest charting album.
After the commercial disappointment of 'Catfights And Spotlights', the group started working on the 'Sweet 7' album, signing with Roc Nation and working with their in-house producers in the US. Around this time, Berrabah also featured on 'Never Leave You' by Tinchy Stryder, which debuted at number one on the UK singles chart. In 2009 it was rumoured that Berrabah had left the group, as she had missed two engagements promoting the album, but it was later revealed that in fact Keisha Buchanan had been removed due to disagreements with Berrabah and Heidi Range, and she was replaced by Jade Ewen. Following these events, Berrabah checked into a European health clinic for a three-week stay, citing "severe nervous exhaustion". After the release of 'Sweet 7' in early 2010, Sugababes left Island Records for a distribution deal with RCA Records, and the first single from their next album, 'Freedom', was released for free in August as a gift to fans. A few months later Range announced that Sugababes were taking a break while they pursued individual endeavours.
Berrabah began working on solo material in 2011 with producer Pete Kirtley, and in January 2012 she announced that she had been working on a solo album in Los Angeles. In May 2013 she confirmed she had nearly completed work on the record, and was looking to release the collection some time in the summer, having written every song on the album apart from two. 'Summertime' was released as the lead single on 21 September 2014, and around this time she also made a series of appearances on reality TV competitions, competing in the BBC celebrity gymnastics show Tumble (with professional partner Douglas Fordyce) in mid-2014, and Celebrity Masterchef in 2016. This effectively put her musical career on hold, as when she listened back to the album, she realised that the music she had made over the previous two years was not to her taste, and so she scrapped the whole record. In 2019 she made her theatre debut with the jukebox musical Club Tropicana, and in January 2022 she was announced as the presenter of the late show on Milton Keynes radio station MKFM, so it looks like it's unlikely that she will ever release an album. That being the case, here is your chance to hear the only one that she made, and to decide if it was as bad as she thought it was.
Track listing
01 Come On
02 So Complete
03 Never Leave You (feat. Tinchy Stryder)
04 Silly Cow
05 Runaway (feat. Beenie Man)
06 Save Myself
07 How Beautiful My Love Is
08 Testify (feat. K-Syran)
09 Summertime
10 Love Is All We Need (feat. Adam J)
11 Shelter
12 God Won't Save U Now (feat. BBX)
