Corinne Bailey Rae (born Corinne Bailey on 26 February 1979) is a Grammy-winning English singer and songwriter who released her eponymous debut album "Corinne Bailey Rae" in February 2006. Rae was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2006 in an annual BBC poll of music critics. Rae was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire to a Kittitian father and an English mother, and she was the eldest of three daughters. She began her musical career at school where she studied classical violin before she turned her attention to singing: "I started off singing in church, I suppose, but people think it must have been a gospel church because of the whole, you know, black assumption", she says in reference to her multiracial background.