Olivia Dean

Olivia Dean (born March 14, 1999, Haringey, London, England) is an English singer whose soulful balladry whisks together elements of pop, jazz, and R&B to create catchy anthems of heartbreak and love. Her foot-tapping second studio album, The Art of Loving (2025), catapulted her to global success. Among her most popular songs are “Man I Need” and “So Easy (to Fall in Love),” both of which also found outsize success on social media.

Early life

The daughter of a Jamaican Guyanese mother and an English father, Dean was born in the London borough of Haringey and raised in Highams Park. She was introduced to the music of artists such as Carole King and Al Green by her father and that of Jill Scott and Angie Stone by her mother. As a young girl, she also enjoyed listening to the pop tunes of Leona Lewis and the boy band JLS. Her other influences include Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, and Joni Mitchell. Lauryn Hill was a particular influence on her and her parents; Dean gets her middle name from the iconic hip-hop artist. Ashley Walters, an actor and rapper who first shot to fame with U.K. garage group So Solid Crew, is her cousin.

At the age of eight, Dean already had her heart set on becoming a singer, taking lessons and participating in musical theater in school. She was accepted into a theater course at the BRIT School at age 15 and later switched to studying music. It was at her graduation concert that Dean caught the eye of Emily Braham, who became her manager.

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Pop stardom and first album

Through Braham, Dean bagged her first gig at the age of 17, singing backup vocals on tour with the British band Rudimental. (Dean later featured on the band’s song “Adrenaline” in 2019.) In 2018 she self-released her first single, “Reason to Stay,” before being signed by AMF Records and Virgin EMI Records a year later to record an EP (extended play) titled OK Love You Bye—accompanied by a music video shot outside abandoned East London pubs. By 2026 the EP’s title track had been streamed more than 200 million times on Spotify. Several EPs followed, including What Am I Gonna Do on Sundays? (2020) and Growth (2021). Even as she was still working on her debut full-length album, Dean’s growing pop-star status and online following won her a brand ambassador contract from luxury fashion brand Chanel and contributed to selling out a European tour. Her debut album, Messy, came out in 2023 and included the Motown-inspired hit “Dive.” Messy reached number four on the U.K. albums chart and was nominated for a Mercury Prize, which recognizes artistic achievement in the British and Irish music industry.

Breakout album and viral success: The Art of Loving

In 2025 Dean’s next album, The Art of Loving, filled with easygoing pop ballads that explore the many shapes love takes, turned out to be an even bigger hit and brought her further recognition as a rising talent. Three songs from the album—“Man I Need,” “So Easy (to Fall in Love),” and “Nice to Each Other”—and one collaboration with Sam Fender—“Rein Me In”—were simultaneously on the U.K. top 10 singles chart, making her the first female solo artist in history to achieve the feat. With “Man I Need,” she also topped both the album and singles charts in the same week—something that had not been achieved since Adele did it in 2021. “Man I Need,” “So Easy (to Fall in Love),” and “Nice to Each Other” also found virality as earworms on TikTok and other social media.

In 2026 Dean was awarded the Grammy for best new artist. In her acceptance speech, she emphasized her heritage as the granddaughter of an immigrant; her grandmother had settled in the United Kingdom in the post-World War II years as part of the “Windrush generation” of Caribbean migrants (named for the ship that had taken many of them to the United Kingdom). Dean was one of several musicians at the awards ceremony who expressed support for immigrants, amid controversies and criticism about the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in American cities.