Olivia Dean is a British singer and songwriter. She was born on 14 March 1999 in the London Borough of Haringey to a Jamaican-Guyanese mother and an English father. Her grandmother emigrated to the UK from Guyana at age 18 as part of the Windrush generation. Dean’s middle name, “Lauryn”, was inspired by the American musician Lauryn Hill. Dean grew up in Highams Park and has said she sometimes felt othered for being mixed-race. Her father often listened to music and they would dance around the kitchen together. In primary school, she sang “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie in a competition and was so nervous that she initially turned her back to the audience and started crying due to stage fright, though she won second place. She took musical theatre lessons in a Saturday school and participated in a gospel choir. At age 15, she was accepted by the BRIT School and made a three-hour round trip daily to attend. She initially studied theatre, but switched to songwriting and convinced her mother to buy her a second-hand piano.
Dean began writing songs at age 16, teaching herself the guitar and piano. She performed at her graduation concert, which attracted the attention of Emily Braham, whom she hired as her manager. Braham got Dean into an audition with Rudimental, who hired Dean as a backing vocalist. Dean has said that she was not good in the position as she often sang the melody instead of the harmony. In 2017, Dean performed her first show at the Sziget Festival in Hungary before a crowd of 16,000.
In October 2018, Dean self-released her debut single, “Reason to Stay”. She was featured on Rudimental’s single “Adrenaline” on the album Toast to Our Differences, released in January 2019. She later signed a recording contract with AMF Records and Virgin EMI Records, and released her debut EP, named OK Love You Bye in November 2019. It was recorded in a converted pub in East London. Her second EP, What Am I Gonna Do On Sundays?, was released in December 2020. In April 2021, she was named the breakthrough artist of the year by Amazon Music. That year, Dean recorded an exclusive version of Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” for Amazon’s Christmas Originals line-up, which charted at number 19 on the UK singles chart.
In August 2021, Dean was selected to take part in the Revive Live Tour organised by Music Venue Trust and funded by The National Lottery to help grassroots music venues recover after the pandemic and enable artists to tour. Dean performed 6 gigs at venues in Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, Cambridge, Bournemouth and Brighton. In 2023, Dean was selected as BBC Music Introducing Artist of the Year. In June of that year, she released her debut full-length album, Messy. Dean performed at Glastonbury Festival 2024. On 26 June 2024, she released the single “Time”, and a cover of the Supremes’s “You Can’t Hurry Love”, recorded at Jools’ Annual Hootenanny, on 9 October 2024. She released her third single of that year, “Touching Toes”, on 15 November.
In February 2025, Dean released the single “It Isn’t Perfect But It Might Be” for the film Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. In the same month, Dean also performed for all 6 dates at Laneway Festival 2025 in Australia. Dean supported Sam Fender on selected dates of Fender’s People Watching Tour, including shows at London Stadium and St James’ Park, and collaborated with Fender on a duet version of “Rein Me In”. The duet was first performed at London Stadium on 6 June 2025,] before being released as a single on 25 June. The single peaked at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart. Her second album, The Art of Loving, was released on 26 September 2025.] The album was preceded by the singles “Nice to Each Other”, “Lady Lady” and “Man I Need”, with “Man I Need” topping the UK singles chart, reaching number 4 on the Billboard Global 200, and becoming Dean’s breakthrough hit internationally. In October 2025, Dean was announced as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, and performed during the episode of 16 November 2025 hosted by Glen Powell.
