b. Emma Lee Bunton, 21 January 1976, Finchley, Barnet, London, England. Bunton aka Baby Spice became the third member of the Spice Girls to enjoy a UK solo number 1 hit when "What Took You So Long?' topped the charts in April 2001. The single appeared after the Spice Girls had been put on indefinite hold following the relative failure of their third album, 2000"s Forever. Bunton had already enjoyed a UK Top 5 hit when, in late 1999, she collaborated with dance pop act Tin Tin Out on a bland cover version of Edie Brickell's "What I Am'. The light frothy pop of Bunton's first solo single was echoed in her debut album for Virgin Records, A Girl Like Me. Released at the start of 2002, the album eschewed the urban experimentation of the Spice Girls" Forever in favour of easy listening pop designed to appeal to the broadest possible demographic. Despite the album reaching the UK Top 5 the relative failure of the follow-up singles prompted Virgin Records not to renew Bunton's recording contract.
Undeterred, the singer landed a new contract with Polydor Records and set about reinventing herself for a second assault on the UK charts. Ditching the fresh-faced girl next-door image of her Spice Girls day, looks that had led to her being dubbed Baby Spice, Bunton vamped up and stripped down in a determined effort to promote her "new-found" sexuality. She also ditched her rather unwieldy surname and announced that she was now simply Emma. The excellent singles "Free Me" and "Maybe" did well in the charts and impressed many critics, with the singer's grasp of how to perform mature adult pop readily apparent. The attendant Free Me (2004) did not quite live up to the quality of the singles but, to the surprise of many, served notice that Bunton, although not the strongest voice, was shaping up to be the Spice Girl with the most viable solo career.
Bunton enjoyed notable radio play on US dance stations in 2005 but was unable to transfer this success to the mainstream charts. She resumed her career in the UK with a charity cover version of Petula Clark's "Downtown", which reached the UK Top 3 in November 2006. The singer's third album, Life In Mono, was released under her full title the following month.
