Halifax, UK · pop

Ed Sheeran

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One man, one loop pedal, stadium after stadium — the biggest singer-songwriter of his generation doing it without a band.

Ed Sheeran was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in 1991 and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, where he began writing songs around age eleven. He built an early following through relentless gigging and self-released EPs in London, independently releasing No.5 Collaborations Project in early 2011 before signing with Asylum Records later that year.

His sound draws on acoustic singer-songwriter folk, pop balladry, hip-hop-influenced phrasing, and, on later records, dance and Afrobeat production. That range runs from the loop-pedal folk of his earliest work to the club-facing tracks that later filled arenas.

His debut album, +, topped the UK Albums Chart in 2011 and contained his first hit single, "The A Team." Its follow-up, ×, topped charts worldwide in 2014 and was the second-best-selling album globally the following year; its single "Thinking Out Loud" won two Grammy Awards, for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.

His third album, ÷, was 2017's best-selling album worldwide; "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill" both debuted in the top two of multiple national charts, and ÷ produced ten UK top-ten singles, a record for one album. "Perfect" reached number one in the US, Australia, and the UK, where it was the 2017 Christmas number one.

Later albums include No.6 Collaborations Project (2019), = (2021), − and Autumn Variations, both from 2023, the latter released on his own label Gingerbread Man Records, and Play (2025); he has sold around 200 million records worldwide. Live, he performs alone, using a loop pedal to layer guitar, body taps, and vocal harmonies, an approach scaled up to stadium shows without a backing band, and he also writes songs for other artists.

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