SADE is bursting back into the charts with her first album in ten years.

Her long-awaited sixth studio album, Soldier of Love, is out next month.

Sade, who used to live in West Bergholt, became one of the biggest stars of the Eighties with her 1984 debut album Diamond Life and single Smooth Operator.

The ex-Clacton County High School and Colchester Institute student went on to become the UK’s top-selling female artist in the States and sold more than 50million albums.

This year she is up for a special Brit award for the best album of the last 30 years, for Diamond Life.

Sade – real name Helen Folasade Adu – received an OBE for services to music in 2002, but it took another eight years to release her next album.

Her mum, Anne Adu, used to be a sister at Clacton Hospital’s maternity unit and lives in Frinton.

Soldier of Love is due out on February 8. But fans could face another long wait for the next album.

Nigerian-born Sade, 51, said: “I only make records when I feel I have something to say. I’m not interested in releasing music just for the sake of selling something.”