"I write," says Joan Armatrading, "because I love it.”

Joan Armatrading is an artist who has always stayed true to herself and love, as another famous person once wrote, is not love if alters when it alteration finds.

Grounded in her music and confident in her abilities, Joan has never buckled to current trends and genres in over four decades of superlative music-making. ‘Influential’ and ‘pioneering’ are just two of the epithets that have been rightly attributed to her.

The very first British female singer/songwriter to gain international success, Joan has won accolade after accolade. Having been honoured by an MBE from the Queen in 2001, In 2020 Joan was awarded a CBE and she has even received the keys to Sydney along the way.

In 1973 she was named Outstanding New Artist in Music Week - and she’s never looked back.

With 21 superlative albums to her credit, the latest released world-wide on BMG in 2018, Joan's subtle and sublime music has touched millions of people all over the world.

Jacqueline Springer is Curator Africa & Diaspora: Performance at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Jacqueline’s professional background is in print & broadcast music journalism, undergraduate teaching, international guest lecturing and freelance event curation.

Jacqueline began her media career in print, writing for a number of specialist music titles before moving unto lifestyle publications, broadsheet newspapers, international music imprints and music-related websites. She was employed by the BBC as a Senior Broadcast Journalist in radio (working in entertainment news) and contributed to discussion (long and short form) on contemporary music, culture and representation.