Corinne Bailey Rae (born Corinne Jacqueline Bailey in February 1979) was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire to a Kittitian father and an English mother, the eldest of 3 daughters (her sister is actress Rhea Bailey). Rae began her musical career at school where she studied classical violin before she turned her attention to singing, mainly at church - she recalls ".. it was just your regular Brethren church, very middle-class, where we would sing these harmonies every Sunday. It was always my favourite part of the service, the singing". Rae later transferred to a Baptist church, where the choir would sing traditional hymns, and Primal Scream tunes. "We changed the words though", Rae states on her website. "We didn't want to offend the regular churchgoers, now did we?". Performing in church broadened Rae's musical horizons, and her love affair with making music was solidified after a local youth leader offered to buy her an electric guitar. In her mid-teens, she became obsessed with rock legends Led Zeppelin, "I loved that band during my teens; I wanted, somehow, to follow in their footsteps, and to create music of my own". Rae formed an all-female indie group called "Helen", which was inspired by similar acts such as Veruca Salt and L7. "It was the first time I'd seen women with guitars. They were kinda sexy—but feminist. I wanted to be like that, at the front of something". The group raised eyebrows on several fronts - they were an all-female group fronted by a mixed-race singer from Leeds in the white, male-dominated world of indie music. The group played many gigs around Leeds and eventually became the first indie act to be signed to heavy metal record label Roadrunner Records, home to acts such as Slipknot, in 1995. The venture proved to be short-lived however after the bassist became pregnant and the group disbanded.

After the disappointment of Helen, Rae went on to attend the University of Leeds where she studied an English Literature degree. While at University, she began work as a hat check girl on an evening in her local jazz club. Permitted to sing on stage with the jazz band when business was slow, it was there that she discovered a different type of music that sent her on a different musical path: "I kept hearing this jazz and soul stuff and I realized I loved music too". It was at university that she met Jason Rae, whom she eventually married in 2001 at age 22, and appended his surname to her own. Also born in 1976, Jason Rae was a Scottish musician, originally hailing from Aberdeen, who played saxophone for the 8 piece group Haggis Horns, who have performed with Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Mark Ronson, Nightmares On Wax and Corinne Bailey Rae herself. Jason Rae died in March 2008.

Over the next 3 years, Rae began working on solo material, steering away from indie and embarking on a more soulful path, collaborating with Leeds based funk group The New Mastersounds on the track "Your Love Is Mine" (which featured on their 2003 album "Be Yourself", released via One Note Records), and working with another Leeds based group, Homecut Directive, on the song "Come the Revolution", which was the first single from the group's debut album. In 2004, Rae got a breakthrough when she was signed by Global Talent Publishing and then approached by Craig David's mentor Mark Hill, from the duo The Artful Dodger, to appear on his new album "Better Luck Next Time" under his new alias, The stiX. The resulting collaboration, "Young and Foolish", was released in April 2005 and led to Rae releasing her debut single, "Like a Star", in November 2005 and her first album, the self titled "Corinne Bailey Rae", in February 2006. Later that year Rae collected 2 awards at the UK's MOBO Awards, "Best UK Newcomer" and "Best UK Female". She also received 3 nominations at the 2007 Grammy Awards, "Record of the Year", "Song of the Year" (both for "Put Your Records On"), and "Best New Artist". During the ceremony, she performed "Like a Star" and joined John Legend and John Mayer in a collaborative performance, providing accompanying vocals to Legend's "Coming Home" and Mayer's "Gravity".