Singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé has talked about how important music was to her growing up in Aberdeenshire: ‘We were the only black people there and that was very isolating. I needed something, and that’s where music came in. That became my world and the way I could connect with people.’ Her first album Our Version of Events debuted at number one in 2012. Four Brit Awards, three MOBOs and two Ivor Novello Awards later, her third studio album Real Life came out in 2019. Self-taught artist Samira Addo won Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2018. The first time she painted a sitter from life was in the heats for this competition; she painted this portrait in the final.