Lily Allen

Lily Rose Beatrice Allen[3] (born 2 May 1985) is an English singer, songwriter, and author. She is the daughter of actor Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. Allen left school when she was 15 and concentrated on improving her performing and compositional skills. In 2005, she made some of her recordings public on Myspace and the publicity resulted in airplay on BBC Radio 1 and a contract with Regal Recordings.

Her first mainstream single, “Smile”, reached number one on the UK Singles Chart in July 2006.[4] Her debut record, Alright, Still, was well received, selling over 2.6 million copies worldwide and bringing Allen nominations at the Grammy Awards, the Brit Awards, and the MTV Video Music Awards. In 2008, she hosted her own television talk show, Lily Allen and Friends, on BBC Three.

In 2009, her second studio album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, saw a genre shift, having more of an electropop feel, rather than the ska and reggae influences of the first one. The album debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and the Australian ARIA Charts and was well received by critics, noting the singer’s musical evolution and maturity. It spawned the hit singles “The Fear”, “Not Fair” and “Fuck You”. This success saw her receive the Brit Award for British Female Solo Artist at the 2010 Brit Awards. Allen and Amy Winehouse were credited with starting a process that led to the “year of the women” media label in 2009 that saw five female artists making music of “experimentalism and fearlessness” nominated for the Mercury Prize.[5]

After announcing a hiatus from her music career in 2009, Allen launched her own record label, In the Name Of, in 2011.[6] She has released two further albums: Sheezus (2014), which debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, and No Shame (2018) debuting at number eight. In 2018, Allen released her autobiographical book, My Thoughts Exactly.[7]