DIDO

Musically gifted from an early age, Dido attended London's Guildhall School of Music and her teenage years were spent listening to her brother's record collection and touring with a classical ensemble. She began singing with various London-based bands before becoming involved in her brother's project, Faithless, and after the million-selling success of "Reverence", Dido toured with the band for 18 months and contributed to Faithless" second album, "Sunday 8pm". At this stage, she had begun writing her own material and had assembled an album's worth of demo tapes.

These demos led to a publishing deal in the UK with Cheeky Records and a deal with the US arm of Arista Records in 1999. Her debut, "No Angel", was produced by Rollo and Youth and received its US release in June 1999.The album captivated the listening public to such an extent that it went on to achieve sales in excess of 12 million copies - and in doing so, confirmed Dido as one of only a handful of British artists capable of breaking through to a global audience in the new millennium.

Dido's first solo successes were in the USA, rather than her native UK. The track "Here With Me" was used as the theme for the hit US television series Roswell, and "Thank You" was used on the soundtrack of the Gwyneth Paltrow movie, Sliding Doors.

Her media profile was raised enormously when Eminem sampled "Thank You" for his own deeply malevolent and disturbing single "Stan", which became a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic. But although this collaboration must be credited with bringing Dido to the attention of a far wider public, she had already been promoting the album for a whole year in the US, selling over a million units in her own right.

"No Angel" combined electronic and acoustic elements to create a lush, down-tempo style, and was released across Europe in 2000. Dido then continued to tour and promote the album until May 2002, by which point the whole music-conscious world had become aware of her, and she had been catapulted to stardom.

Now back with her follow up "Life For Rent" and the attendant first single "White Flag", Dido has achieved recognition worldwide and is tipped to have another hit album on her hands. So we at MTV thought it was only right that we should crown her as our artist of the week.

HH