Celeste Waite is the winner of the 2020 Rising Star BRIT Award. It feels like one of the safest decisions taken by the academy since a certain Tottenham-born female singer took the inaugural Critics’ Choice prize in 2008. This is a neat introduction to Celeste’s fledgling collection of exquisite modern soul, with “Strange” perhaps the natural starting point. “People will come to me after shows and message me to ask what it is, and what it’s about,” she tells Apple Music. “I was in the studio and we had the chords that you hear in the song. I knew that they were important and I needed to write something good.” Her collaborations with Leeds jazz/hip-hop collective Gotts Street Park, meanwhile, identify her as a performer with total command of that heart-stopping voice—and an awareness of the power of space. There’s a restraint to Celeste that’s utterly compelling and whets the appetite for more. “I’ve been working towards my album in October [2019] and the plan was always to have it out towards the end of 2020,” she says. “If anything this BRIT Award is just going to spur me on to make sure that when I deliver the album it’s more than what people expect. I can’t wait to put everything together in a body of work.”