Jessica Ellen Cornish (born 27 March 1988), known professionally as Jessie J, is an English singer. Born and raised in London, she began her career on stage, aged 11, with a role in the West End musical Whistle Down the Wind. She studied at the BRIT School before signing with Gut Records and striking a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

After signing with Republic Records, Jessie J came to prominence following the release of her debut single, “Do It Like a Dude”. Her following single, “Price Tag”, topped the charts in nineteen countries including the UK and was followed by the release of her debut album, Who You Are (2011), which peaked at number two in the UK. Other singles from the album included “Nobody’s Perfect”, “Who You Are”, “Domino” and “Laserlight”, all of which peaked within the top ten on the UK Singles Chart, making Jessie J the first British female artist to have six top-ten singles from a sole studio album.[3] “Domino” also attained further international success, peaking at number six on the US Billboard Hot 100 and becoming her second number-one single in the UK. In 2012, Jessie J performed at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace in June, as well as the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London on 12 August.

Her second album, Alive (2013), peaked within the top five on the UK Albums Chart and also included the top-five singles “Wild” and “It’s My Party”. The release of her third album, Sweet Talker (2014), was preceded by the single “Bang Bang” which debuted at number one in the UK and went multi-platinum worldwide. The album made the top five in the UK and peaked at number ten on the US Billboard 200, her highest-charting album in the US. As of January 2015, Jessie J had sold over 20 million singles and 3 million albums worldwide.

Citing various influences, Jessie J is recognised for an unconventional musical and performance style that mixes soul vocals with contemporary R&B, pop, electropop, and hip-hop beats. She has received various accolades throughout her career, including the 2011 Critics’ Choice Brit Award and the BBC’s Sound of 2011. Jessie J has supported various charitable causes, and has appeared on the UK charity telethons BBC Children in Need and Comic Relief. She has served as a coach on the competition series The Voice UK, The Voice Australia and The Voice Kids UK. In 2018, Jessie J received recognition in China after winning the sixth season of the Hunan TV reality program Singer (previously called I Am a Singer) becoming the first non-Chinese contestant to win the series.

Jessica Ellen Cornish was born on 27 March 1988 in Chadwell Heath in the London Borough of Redbridge, London,  to Rose (née Archer) and Stephen Cornish. She was educated at Mayfield High School in LB Redbridge. This area was part of Essex until 1965 and Jessie J refers to herself as an Essex girl. She attended Colin’s Performing Arts School and as an 11-year-old she was cast in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End production of Whistle Down the Wind. She subsequently joined the National Youth Music Theatre and appeared in their 2002 production of The Late Sleepers.

Cornish has two elder sisters, who were both head girls at school. Unlike her academic sisters, Cornish has stated she was “never really that good at anything”. She said, “At school they were like ‘oh, you’re a Cornish girl’ and they kind of expected me to be the same as my sisters. Give me something to draw or an outfit to pick for someone, or hair, make-up, acting, write a song, I’m fine with it, but anything to do with sums – it was never my thing.” She also said she never based her intelligence on her exam results.  She also said she was always good at singing and it was her “thing”. In 2003, at age 15, she won Best Pop Singer in the TV show Britain’s Brilliant Prodigies, performing as Jessica Cornish. At the age of 16 she began studying at the BRIT School and at 17 she joined a girl group named Soul Deep. She graduated in the class of 2006 along with singers Adele and Leona Lewis. She suffered a ‘minor stroke at 18.’ This was attributed to the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which she was diagnosed with aged 11.

Jessie J was signed to Gut Records, recording an album for the label, but the company went bankrupt before any material was released. She then found success as a songwriter, gaining a Sony ATV publishing contract. She was also the support act for Cyndi Lauper during Lauper’s UK dates of her 2008 Bring Ya to the Brink tour (Lauper invited J to join her on stage for the performances of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”). Jessie has also written lyrics for artists such as Chris Brown and Miley Cyrus, including “Party in the U.S.A.”. Jessie J was also part of a girl band, called Soul Deep, for two years, however, believing “it wasn’t going anywhere”, she left the group. Despite people thinking that her first notoriety was through YouTube, Jessie was signed for four years before her first video was posted. Jessie first came to the attention of Lava Records when her publisher at Sony/ATV, Rich Christina, sent Lava president Jason Flom a link to her MySpace page, which the record executive loved. After seeing an impressive US showcase, Lava, along with several other labels, was keen to sign the artist but progress was hampered by her management’s insistence on, what Flom called, a “crazy deal”, and their refusal to let Jessie speak to any labels directly. Despite this, Senior Director of A&R at Lava, Harinder Rana, made surreptitious efforts to meet Jessie on her own in winter of 2008. Later in the year a change in management to Sarah Stennett and Nadia Khan of Crown Music allowed record deal negotiations to take place. Jessie eventually signed with Lava as part of a joint venture with Universal Republic.