It’s testament to how far Olivia Dean has already come that she’s re-released ‘The Hardest Part’, a single that only three years ago helped to catapult her into the limelight. Now embellished with vocals from Leon Bridges, her R&B and soul inflections deepened and rounded out, the track carries a new weight and maturity, signalling an artist who is increasingly finding her voice. 
‘The Hardest Part’ appears on Dean’s debut album Messy, which dropped in June, though you would be forgiven for thinking she’s a more seasoned act. Tickets for her 2023 show at Camden’s KOKO sold out in under a minute with another date hastily arranged at Roundhouse, only for that to sell out too. She’s lent her honeyed timbre to Loyle Carner’s ‘Homerton’, been recruited as a Chanel ambassador, and was named Amazon Music’s Breakthrough Artist in 2021. Evidently, her gently sung, kitchen-sink meditations on matters of the heart have hit a nerve.

All this feels a world away from Dean’s first big break, backing the drum & bass band Rudimental. Yet, joining them onstage in locations as diverse as V Festival in England and Sziget Festival in Hungary, Dean’s rafters-shaking vocals stood out, giving her an early taste of singing as a touring artist. She would crave that gigging life when lockdown hit and so, in 2020, she packed herself and her band into a sunshine yellow van and hit the road. They billed themselves as a roving, socially distanced venue, which offered sanctuary amid the chaos.

Soul drips from every note of Dean’s music. She cites Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin and Carole King as influences, while her parents imparted a love for Lauryn Hill (her full name is Olivia Lauryn Dean). ‘When I was in [my mum’s] tummy she was listening to her,’ she told the Evening Standard. ‘Her spirit runs within me.’ Just as Hill put her neo-soul spin on hip hop, Dean is twisting pop hooks. Where she takes them next remains to be seen.

Olivia Dean plays Connect, Royal Highland Showgrounds, Edinburgh, Saturday 26 August.