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Emeli Sande Serenades SPIN’s Steve Madden Party

Photo by Andrew St. Clair

Last night’s Steve Madden Music Summer Series event in New York City featuring Emeli Sandé wasn’t just hot — it was humid. The guests at 100 Rivington cooled down with Tito’s Homemade Vodka cocktails and precipitation-covered bottles of Pacifico beer while DJ Kalkutta spun hits from Rihanna and Kanye West. But when the evening’s host, Miss Info, took the stage, the flush of the room came second to the anticipation for Sandé, the Scottish soul singer whose debut album Our Version of Events just got its U.S. release. Her stripped-down, four-song set turned a swaying crowd into an emotional band of belters from her kick-off, “Daddy,” to her best-known song, “Next to Me.” Her commanding voice added a new layer of heat, but with her kind of talent, the extra warmth was welcome. The positive review her album received in the New York Times today says a lot: “It’s full of nods to familiar soul sounds, but Ms. Sandé is revivifying styles that aren’t even all that dead, applying the dignified-throwback-soul idea to the music of the 1990s. The result is a new form, austere in the way classicists appreciate, but fundamentally young.”

The event was the second of a three-part series SPIN is hosting with Steve Madden Music that go down at the Steve Madden Store in New York’s Lower East Side. Stay tuned for info on the invite-only next party, which will take place in July!

Emeli Sandé / Photo by Photo by Andrew St. ClairEmeli Sandé / Photo by Andrew St. Clair

Emeli Sandé and Steve Madden  / Photo by Photo by Andrew St. ClairEmeli Sandé / Photo by Andrew St. Clair