''Much Love'' is the debut album by British singer

Shola Ama Shola Ama (born 8 March 1979) is a British singer from London, who scored her biggest hits with "You Might Need Somebody" (1997), a cover of Randy Crawford's 1981 hit, " You're the One I Love" and "Still Believe" (1999) which was one of the fi ...

. It was released by Freakstreet and

WEA The Wea were a Miami-Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as either being closely related to the Miami Tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami. Today, the descendants of the ...

on 1 September 1997 in the United Kingdom. Ama worked with songwriting collective

D'Influence D'Influence (also D-Influence and D*Influence) is a British production team and acid jazz band. Formerly of The Echo Label, they founded their own label, Freakstreet Records. Original members include Kwame Kwaten, Sarah-Ann Webb, Ed Baden-Powell ...

on the majority of the album, with Shaun LaBelle, Livio Harris, and Paul Waller providing additional production. ''Much Love'' was preceded by two top ten hit singles: a

cover Cover or covers may refer to: Packaging * Another name for a lid * Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package * Album cover, the front of the packaging * Book cover or magazine cover ** Book design ** Back cover copy, part of co ...

of "

You Might Need Somebody "You Might Need Somebody" is a song written by Tom Snow and Nan O'Byrne, and first recorded in 1980 by American singer and guitarist Turley Richards. The following year, American jazz and R&B singer Randy Crawford released her version which char ...

", originally made famous by

Randy Crawford Veronica "Randy" Crawford (born February 18, 1952) is an American jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 as a solo artist. However, she has ap ...

, and follow-up " You're the One I Love". "Who's Loving My Baby" and "Much Love" were also released as singles, both reaching the UK top twenty. The album reached the top ten of the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

, peaking at number six, and entered the top twenty in Germany and the top thirty in France, and the Netherlands. In the United Kingdom, it was eventually certified gold by the

British Phonographic Industry British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is the British recorded music industry's Trade association. It runs the BRIT Awards, the Classic BRIT Awards, National Album Day, is home to the Mercury Prize, and co-owns the Official Charts Company with th ...

(BPI), indicating sales in excess of 100,000 copies. Following the success of the album, Ama won a

Brit Award The BRIT Awards (often simply called the BRITs) are the British Phonographic Industry's annual popular music awards. The name was originally a shortened form of "British", "Britain", or "Britannia" (in the early days the awards were sponsored ...

for Best British Female and two

MOBO Awards The MOBO Awards (Music of Black Origin, also known as the MOBOs) are an annual British music award presentation honouring achievements in " music of black origin", including hip hop, grime, UK Drill, R&B, soul, reggae, jazz, gospel, and Af ...

for Best Newcomer and Best R&B Act.

Track listing

Sample credits * "I Love Your Ways" contains a replayed element of "Give Me the Sunshine" by Leo's Sunshipp.

Personnel

Adapted from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

. *San Acharya – A&R *Shola Ama – primary artist, vocals, background vocals *Ed Baden-Powell – bass, drum programming, guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, keyboards, string arrangements *Toby Baker – bass, keyboards *David Barry – guitar *Carlton Batts – mastering *Joe Belmaati – keyboards, programming *Melvin Britt – background vocals *Sue Ann Carwell – vocal arrangement, background vocals *

Rob Chiarelli Rob Chiarelli (born January 13, 1963) is an American record producer, mix engineer, musician, published author and multiple Grammy Award winner. Widely recognized as a music producer for Will Smith and ''Men in Black II'' (2002), Chiarelli's wo ...

– mixing *Jorge Corante – drum programming, keyboards, piano *

Cutfather Mich Hedin Hansen (born 9 April 1968), known professionally as Cutfather, is a Danish music producer, songwriter, remixer and DJ based in Copenhagen. Cutfather has a studio on Njalsgade, Copenhagen. Career Cutfather is perhaps best known for his ...

– producer, remixing *

– arranger, mixing, producer *Michael "Mickey D" Davis – A&R, executive producer *

Terry Dexter Terry Dexter is an Americans, American contemporary R&B singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and actress. Early life Dexter was born in Detroit, Detroit, Michigan. She has a twin sister, and she describes her ethnicity simply as miscege ...

– background vocals *Marcella Ffrench – background vocals *Mark Franks – engineer *Guido Zen – engineer *Livio Harris – arranger, producer, background vocals *Stephen Hussey – strings *Anthony Jeffries – engineer *

Kwame Kwaten Kwame Amankwa Kwaten (born 13 May 1967) is a British manager, music consultant, musician and record producer. He owns an artist management and consultancy company called Ferocious Talent and is a co-founder of Cr8ing Vision, a non-profit compan ...

– bass, executive producer, keyboards, moog bass *Shaun LaBelle – arranger, bass, drum programming, producer, synthesizer * Ed Lover – engineer *Steve Marston – horn *Patrick McMahon – engineer *Yan Memmi – engineer, mixing *Rod Michaels – engineer *Randee Saint Nicholas – photography *Dik Shopteau – engineer *Paul Waller – arranger, drum programming, keyboards, mixing, producer

Charts

Certifications

References

External links

''Much Love''
at

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...

{{Authority control 1997 debut albums Warner Music Group albums Shola Ama albums