Emma-Jean Thackray

Emma-Jean’s journey to becoming one of the most talked-about figures in contemporary music has been anything but conventional. Born in West Yorkshire and classically trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Trinity Laban Conservatoire, she spent her early career defying musical boundaries with her genre-blending sound. Thackray's rise to prominence included her self-released EP ‘Walrus' (2016) and the Jazz FM award-winning 'Yellow' (2021), which solidified her position as one of the UK's most innovative musicians and saw her performing at iconic venues and festivals, from the London Symphony Orchestra to numerous Glastonbury slots. Her forthcoming album ‘Weirdo’ heralds the start of a new musical chapter for Emma-Jean as part of the revered Brownswood Recordings (Yussef Dayes, Kokoroko). An institution proudly rooted in London’s diverse music community, the label has become a hub for eclectic genre-defying music, and feels like the perfect home for a boundary-blurring musical force such as Thackray.