There’s a quiet power to Nectar Woode — a magnetic blend of soulfulness, sensitivity and spirited self-discovery that courses through every note she sings. Raised in the culturally layered town of Milton Keynes, and born to creatively-minded Ghanaian-British parents, Nectar’s world was always painted with the colours of possibility. “I feel like my parents wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t follow the creative path,” she laughs — but even with their full encouragement, the small-town hush around her often made dreaming out loud feel like a radical act. Nectar’s mother, a seamstress, encouraged expression from a young age, while her father’s Ghanaian heritage infused the household with rhythm, melody, and ancestral depth. Sundays were for church, where the harmonies of gospel choirs made a deep imprint. At home, Nectar was immersed in a rich soundscape — from Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu to Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway — artists who taught her that soul isn’t just a genre, but an emotion you feel deeply. That same emotional truth now pulses through her own music; earlier this year, Elton John likened her to none other than Nina Simone on his Apple Music show, Rocket Hour.
Now 25-years-old, Nectar Woode has become exactly the kind of artist who honours where she comes from — both in geography and in heritage — while stepping bravely into where she’s headed. Her music, a vivid tapestry of neo-soul, folk, jazz, gospel and raw, diaristic songwriting, has found listeners across the world. Yet her voice — in both sound and spirit — is unmistakably her own.
Having been raised in “a working class area in Milton-Keynes”, Nectar grew up around so many talented people from different cultural backgrounds, but she noticed that what helped kids stay on the right track was “keeping them occupied with creative spaces. It’s so sad that only financially stable families are able to provide creative spaces for their kids. I think it should be for everyone. Everyone is creative, and they should be provided the means to explore that.” After her secondary school’s refurbishment, Nectar Woode spent most of her free periods in the music room. “There’d be all the guys freestyling while we’d play the piano chords, absolute classics.” Reminiscing fondly on her adolescence, Nectar found the discipline and passion for creative outlets from those around her equally as inspiring, remaining diligent in learning stringed instruments as she grew. “I like restraints or limitations, so if I learned a few keys that day, I’d only make songs within those keys.”
“I knew I could marry my performing arts skills through the performance of the guitar and having that with me, with my voice and performing songs for people. It made the most sense,” says Nectar, after she enrolled in the music institution ICMP, “To be fair it’s everything you need as an artist: performing, production and songwriting.” But it was gigging close to her degree's end that ultimately caught the attention of Woode’s now management, after a peer placed her onto his story. “Loads of people kept asking ‘who is that singing’, and followed me. I’m forever grateful,” she explains.N
ectar Woode’s brand of self-referential, poetically led music is bursting with a revitalised quirk. “I love being real in my music, I love making people feel,” she explains. In 2022, Nectar released her debut EP Nothing to Lose on Communion Records, an introduction to her quietly powerful sound. An amalgamation of folk, indie, gospel, jazz and neo-soul the wider EP — through the likes of the tender ‘Good Vibrations’ (also a viral breakthrough with 11m streams), and tightly woven ‘Other Side’ — speaks to wisdom beyond Woode’s years, her endearing appeal on full display in real time.
It was followed by Head Above Water in 2024, a bolder, more assured body of work that pushed further into jazz pastures. On the smokey and tempered ‘Tell a lil lie’, she divulges on not wanting to dampen the mood. “I’m not putting it off, telling my friends, but it's telling a little lie to get through a social situation and not dampen the mood,” she laughs. ‘Grow’, helps to place Nectar in a lineage that exceeds her 25 years; an active steward of neo soul and jazz that have come before her. ‘How It’s Gotta Be’ allows for the embrace of her deeper textures, the listener instantly converting across the song's three minutes and forty seconds. Selling out her London headline at Moth Club, Nectar was invited to support Leon Bridges and NAO on tour, as well as earning a BBC Radio 1 Track of the Week. Nectar’s music began spreading organically — one powerful performance at a time — whether that be with her full band or equally as soul stirring, alone with her guitar.
Signing to Since93/RCA, on her upcoming EP it's like I never left, Nectar winds even deeper into her stratosphere, this era informed by an ancestral touch, found in her first trip to Ghana. Coming from a half-British, half-Ghanaian household, Nectar has always been curious about her father’s side. “It’s something I had to do,” she reflects. Heading to Accra and Aburi at the top of 2025 with her father, having never visited before, her heart and soul were nourished by an instant communal feel. “It’s honestly like I’d been there before, I can’t explain it.” As products of a mixed heritage, it's like I never left, sees the product of a conversation between Nectar and jazz titan, Jordan Rakei, on mixed heritage and identity, serve as the project's opener. Commenced with a strikingly ghouling piano key, ‘Only Happen’, serves as the anxiety of being misunderstood, only acknowledged in adversity, chaos or harm. “Tryna make me disappear, I swear I heard it all before, feeling the rhythm heading for the light,” Nectar emotes across the chorus. Marking her trip in the form of musical creation on the continent, the singer collaborated with the mighty SuperJazzClub — a reggae, jazz, soul and hip-hop led posse of producers, musical artists and film-makers. “They are just so fun to create with,” Nectar divulges. ‘Lose’, one of the songs that came of their time together, is a bold mark of afro-futurism, the rugged bassline juxtaposed with the softer inflections of Nectar’s voice, paired nicely with sparse piano keys and the quirk of loose guitar strings. “I needed the bassline to hit you,” Nectar exclaims. Channelling the likes of Fela Kuti traditionalism and SuperJazzClub’s elusive tendencies the song is a mirror of the past, but a leap into the future too. “I wanted the world to meet right in the middle, super care-free.”
‘Ama said’, champions yet another of Nectar’s family members, this time using the terrain of boom bap rap, soul and jazz to spotlight her younger sister. “Do whatever you feel (ama said),” she beams. Visibility ecstatic of her siblings inclusion in the song's lyrics, the pair's father played the saxophone across the song. “It’s just a beautiful moment, where you can go home, track your family and put them on this incredible song,” Produced by Woody, the song acts as a pure example of love, and honouring home comforts.
it's like I never left’s penultimate song ‘When The Rain Stops’ that Nectar Woode’s songwriting potential is acutely canvassed. Vividly immersive, and smartly utilising the environment, Nectar documents the clearer days found in letting go. “It’s bittersweet, but I’m proud of me, I’m through the rain,” she concludes. Wanting to emulate a chord sequence that tributed Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, its nature reflects the turn of a mood and aligned well with Nectar's emotional sentiments.
Finally, the sophisticated ‘Home Again’ manages to imbue a smoothly rustic atmosphere across its soundscape as hand drums cushioning the hollow guitar strings. “I’m home, home again, like the first time I saw you, you open up the door,” she sings tenderly across the chorus. “It was obvious I wasn’t from there,” she begins. “But I was treated no differently, it’s those moments you're afraid of, but go for anyway that teaches you the most.”
Alongside her own releases, Nectar has become a beloved voice in the UK’s independent soul and jazz community. She hosts a monthly show for Women in Jazz on Soho Radio, offering a platform for underrepresented voices. She’s also a regular at festivals and cultural spaces — not just performing, but connecting, building community, and inspiring the next wave of artists to take up space with softness and strength, having worked with Spotify Fresh Finds interviewing artists at Glastonbury last year.
With over 815,000 monthly Spotify listeners, major summer festivals ahead, and fans ranging from Elton John to the BBC, Nectar Woode is a singular artist in bloom. She doesn’t shout to be heard — instead, she invites you in. Her music is deeply personal yet universally resonant, reminding us that in vulnerability there is power. Honest, believable and ultimately alluring in the documentation of a twentysomethings mixed heritage woman, Nectar Woode wears her heart on her sleeve, something that’s equally as brave as it is beguiling. “I love community, I love building community led by truth.”
