Mary Lambert

Lambert had displayed serious artistic promise from a young age, representing her hometown of Seattle at an international poetry competition in 2008 and forming the city’s Collegiate team in the discipline a year later, but she would go on to get her big break in the musical world instead; 2012 saw her co-write ‘Same Love’ with hip hop superstars Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. The track, which broke new ground for the genre by finally facing up to its longstanding problem with homophobia, saw Lambert draw upon her own experience with sexual abuse and bigotry to write and perform a powerful chorus on the track, which would go onto reach over one hundred million views on YouTube and achieve double platinum status. Lambert played the track at the Grammys, as well as on a slew of major television shows with her fellow Seattleites.

Inspired by this success, she went on to release a debut album in October of 2014, entitled ‘Heart on My Sleeve’, which was preceded by a single release of ‘Body Love’, a largely-spoken word piece which maintained her penchant for social commentary by focusing on issues of body image, particularly in the media. The record debuted at number 29 on the Billboard album charts.