after studying fashion design, and later modeling briefly, adu sang backup with british band pride. during this time she formed a writing partnership with pride's guitarist andsaxophonist stuart matthewman; together, backed by pride's rhythm section, they began doing their own sets at pride gigs. in 1983, adu and matthewman split from pride along with keyboardist andrew hale, bassist paul denman, and drummer paul cooke and formed sade; later that year they got a record deal. afterwards, sade released their debut album, "diamond life", in 1984, which became a success in the united kingdom and later became a success in the united states following the release of its single "smooth operator". "diamond life" had international sales of over six million copies, becoming one of the top-selling debut recordings of the 1980s and the best-selling debut ever by a british female vocalist.