Natasha Bedingfield

With a number 1 single in America, a number 1 UK debut album, and over 6.5 million units shifted worldwide, Natasha Bedingfield is the UK's biggest female pop star bar none - a bold, beautiful home grown answer to US Uber-Divas Christina Aguilera and Pink. Natasha took the US by storm last year with the first British chart topping hit by a female in almost twenty years. Vanity Fair singled her out as the spearhead of a new Britpop invasion; she became one of the faces of Gap (alongside Mia Farrow and Common); she was invited by her hero Prince to jam with him at a private party; Bono enlisted her for his (RED) campaign; and her song Unwritten proved to be the most played song on mainstream American radio in 2006. To everyone else she is "The 'Single' Girl" who blasted her way up the British charts in 2004 with her typically outspoken take on the lifestyles of independent young women. So her return to action this year may come as something of a surprise... "I want to make music that matches who I am. My first album was about independence and opportunism. I'm still very independent and I find it hard to let go of that freedom, but I'm in a different place now. I've been dating, searching for a partner, looking for Mr Right..." Natasha Bedingfield's sophomore album N.B. is very much reflective of this 'different place' that she is in now, proving that affairs of the heart, although difficult, make for excellent song-writing material. Each track on the album explores a varying stage of the 'relationship' story, and the issues, experiences, and processes that come with these stages: from the lonely place of never feeling like you will fit with anyone (Soulmate), through the flirting, dancing stage where you feel you might (How Do You Do?), to the moment at which the game playing ends and open honesty prevails (Say It Again). Never one to mouth empty platitudes or re-hash well-worn clichés, Natasha's gift for creating pop music that does not sacrifice intelligence on the altar of universal appeal prevails throughout. Recorded in Los Angeles, Natasha Bedingfield has co-written and co-produced N.B., working with a stellar team of talent including Mike Elizondo of Eminem/Dre/50 Cent fame, Adam Levine (Maroon 5), Greg Kurstin (Beck, Lily Allen), previous collaborators Steve Kipner, Andrew Frampton, Wayne Wilkins, Danielle Brisebois and Wayne Rodrigues and long time Madonna collaborator Pat Leonard. The first cut to be taken from N.B. is forthcoming single I Wanna Have Your Babies, due to be accompanied by a colourful and entertaining video from Dave Meyers (Pink, Missy Elliot, Outkast). Lyrically I Wanna have Your Babies touches on a female's fight to reign in their natural disposition to 'rush into things' in an effort to find that elusive 'one', that potential father to their children. Musically it is distinctly 'Natasha Bedingfield' - the voice to melt radios, the beats that drop either side of the Atlantic, the arrangements that are undeniably quirky, but still, somehow, work.