Mabel Alabama-Pearl McVey (born 19 February 1996) is a British singer. She rose to prominence in 2017 with her single "Finders Keepers" which peaked at number eight on the UK Singles Chart.
Her debut studio album High Expectations was released in 2019 and entered the UK Albums Chart at number three, being certified platinum. The album included the top ten singles "Don't Call Me Up", "Mad Love" and "Boyfriend", with "Don't Call Me Up" also charting on the US Billboard Hot 100. She won the Brit Award for British Female Solo Artist in 2020.
Her second studio album About Last Night... was released in 2022. It was supported by the release of its lead single "Let Them Know". The album peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart and became her highest-charting album on the chart.
Mabel Alabama-Pearl McVey was born on 19 February 1996 in Alhaurín el Grande, Málaga, Spain. She is the youngest child of English music producer Cameron McVey and Swedish-Sierra Leonean singer Neneh Cherry. Through her mother, Mabel is the step-granddaughter of the American jazz musician Don Cherry, granddaughter of Swedish-Sierra Leonean highlife and afrobeat musician Ahmadu Jah and the niece of Swedish singers Eagle-Eye Cherry and Titiyo. Her sister Tyson, half-sister Naima and half-brother Marlon Roudette are also singers. The family lived in Alhaurín el Grande for two years prior to Mabel's birth before relocating back to Notting Hill, West London, England when she was two years old.
At age four, she taught herself to read through phonetics and audiobooks, but soon developed anxiety from being sensitive to her surroundings and being bullied due to racial backgrounds. Her parents—who were against the use of medication—encouraged Mabel to express herself through music and a journal. The following year, she learned piano and wrote her first song.
To help manage her anxiety, the family moved to Sweden when she was eight and lived in her mother's native countryside home near the town of Hässleholm in southern Sweden, and later moved to Stockholm in October 2004. First, she attended an international school, but later transferred to Kulturama, a school with aesthetic training and courses including musical, music and song as well as visual arts and design.At age 15, Mabel enrolled at the Stockholm music school Rytmus Musikergymnasiet (a music high school) where she took a three-year course in songwriting, production and music theory. She commented on her time at the school on Swedish radio: "I was drawn to RnB and wanted to write songs on piano, but the most popular students wrote indie songs on guitar." While in high school, she had a popular Swedish style blog, chronicling her girl-gang's style. It was so successful that it landed her in the front row of international runway shows with her mother Neneh Cherry, including the likes of Stella McCartney and the Paris Fashion Week. Mabel's stylist is her Swedish high school friend, Simone Beyene.
2015–2018: Bedroom and Ivy to Roses
Mabel told Swedish morning show Nyhetsmorgon that she moved to London as soon as she graduated Rytmus musikgymnasium in Stockholm because she found the London R&B scene appetizing.
Mabel released her debut single "Know Me Better" in July 2015, which caught the attention of BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, who made the song her Tune of the Week. Within weeks, Mabel signed a recording contract with Universal.
Just after leaving Stockholm for London, The Guardian's Tshepo Mokoena spotlighted Mabel as one of Sweden's rising stars in a profile of three new Swedish R&B singers:
Better Swede symphony: how a new generation is redefining Scandipop. In a genre once typified by blonde singers and ice-cool beats, artists like Mabel, Zhala and Seinabo Sey are multi-racial and multi-genre, yet create music indebted to Sweden's pop heritage
In March 2017, after the releases of the 2015 and 2016 singles "My Boy My Town" and "Thinking Of You", she released "Finders Keepers" featuring British rapper Kojo Funds, which reached the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart in late 2017. In May 2017, she released her debut extended play Bedroom.
In October 2017, Mabel released "Begging", the lead single from her debut mixtape Ivy to Roses, which was released shortly after. In December, she collaborated with Not3s on "My Lover". Following the January 2018 release of a second Not3s collaboration, "Fine Line", Mabel opened for English singer Harry Styles during the European part of the second leg of a tour in the support of his debut studio album. After her tour with Styles, she embarked on her own headline tour through the United Kingdom and Europe. In June, she was featured on "Ring Ring" alongside American rapper Rich the Kid and British DJ Jax Jones. Later that year, after releasing "One Shot", she co-wrote "Blind", a song for British girl group Four of Diamonds.
In January 2019, Mabel was nominated for British Breakthrough Act at the 2019 Brit Awards. She re-released Ivy to Roses with a new cover art and the inclusion of all the singles that had been released since the first edition's release. With this, Mabel also released "Don't Call Me Up", which debuted at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart. The song peaked at number 3, becoming her highest-charting single to date. On 7 June 2019, she released "Mad Love", the second single from her debut studio album, High Expectations, which was released on 2 August that year. The song debuted at number 18 in the UK, later peaking at number 8.
"Don't Call Me Up" was nominated for the "Song of The Year" award at the Swedish Radio P3's 2020 P3 Guld Awards
Following the November 2019 release of her Christmas single Loneliest Time Of Year, in December 2019, Mabel performed at the Jingle Bell Ball, alongside other artists such as Ava Max, Rita Ora, Regard and The Script.
From January to March 2020, Mabel embarked on the High Expectations Tour across North America, the United Kingdom and Europe.
In February 2020, she released the song "Boyfriend". She then featured in a BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge cover of the Foo Fighters song "Times Like These" as part of the Live Lounge Allstars. This was organised in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Later that year, in July, Mabel collaborated with AJ Tracey on "West Ten" and released an acoustic version of High Expectations. The following month, Clean Bandit released "Tick Tock" featuring Mabel and 24kGoldn.