Joss Stone

Joss Stone is an English singer, songwriter, and actress whose two-decade music career has produced multiple defining 21st-century international soul-and-R&B albums — particularly her 2003 debut album The Soul Sessions, recorded when she was 16. She was born Joscelyn Eve Stoker on April 11, 1987, in Dover, Kent, England. Her father Richard Stoker was a fruit-and-nut wholesaler and her mother Wendy Stoker was a homemaker. The family relocated to a Devon farmhouse near Cullompton when Joss was a young child.

Her breakthrough came at age 13 in 2001 — when she won the BBC One TV talent competition Star for a Night with her cover of Donna Summer's "On the Radio." Her 2002 American Steve Greenberg S-Curve Records signing — at age 14 — launched her 2003 first album The Soul Sessions. The September 2003 album The Soul Sessions — recorded at Miami's Hit Factory under producer Steve Greenberg with featured Hi Records soul-music musicians including Willie Mitchell and his Memphis Hi Records session band — sold over four million copies worldwide.

Her 2004 second album Mind Body & Soul — released September 2004 — debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and launched her 2005 American Grammy Award nomination for Best New Artist. The 2007 third album Introducing Joss Stone and the 2009 fourth album Colour Me Free! produced her later 2000s commercial output.

Her 2011 founding of Stone'd Records — her own independent record label — and her 2014 "Total World Tour" project (a 2014–2019 multi-year worldwide concert series across all 200+ countries and territories of the world) produced her 2010s international independent-musician public profile. Her subsequent international career has produced multiple American Songbook collaborations — particularly her 2010s collaboration with Damian Marley as the duo SuperHeavy alongside Mick Jagger, Dave Stewart, and A. R. Rahman. She has been with English drummer Cody DaLuz since 2018, and the couple has two daughters.

Her name Joss began as a personally-adopted nickname (originally an English diminutive of Joscelyn). Joss has been a rare but enduring American girls' name across the early 21st century.