Jessie Ware Just Proved She's One of Our Most Underrated Pop Stars With This Performance

Culture

U.K. singer-songwriter Jessie Ware took the stage Wednesday night on The Late Late Show With James Corden and stunned with her performance of "Say You Love Me." The song was first released in October as a single off her sophomore album, Tough Love, but Ware breathed new life into the emotional song with her late night rendition. She proved exactly why she deserves so much more credit than she gets:

Ware is seriously underrated. Though neither of her albums have cracked the top 10 in the U.S., her first and second albums both peaked in the top 10 of the U.K. charts. Her captivating performance proves that she should be more than a blip on the radar in American music — she showed what she can really do when she took the stage Wednesday night.

Her career has been extraordinary: After a brief stint as a journalist at the Jewish Chronicle, she started off her music career by singing backing vocals on dubstep tracks with the likes of SBTRKT. Ware eventually made her way to a solo career, pulling fans from the U.K. neo-soul scene, which boasts artists like Adele and Sam Smith.

Devotion, her debut solo album, received rave reviews from critics in the U.K. and U.S. alike. The BBC wrote, "There's nothing 'next' about Ware: She's here, now and superb." But the album only reached No. 79 on the Billboard 200, and Ware didn't break out in the U.S. as she did in her home country. Ware's sophomore effort, Tough Love, did better in the U.S., and she started gaining international traction.

Co-written with Ed Sheeran, Ware's single, "Say You Love Me," is a testament to the British songwriter's soulful vocals and writing chops. And her latest performance is just further proof that, underrated as she may be, Ware still stuns with simplicity and spirit.