Eliot Pauline Sumner was born in Italy, and grew up in a small village in Wiltshire, England. Music runs in her family, as she is the daughter of a VERY famous musician, Sting (formerly of the band The Police). While she received a first-rate musical education from her father, she kept herself largely removed from the glamour and glitz of her father’s career. By her mid-teens, however, “Coco” Sumner began to follow in her dad’s footsteps, composing reggae-flavored songs of her own, many of which were posted to her MySpace page. Several labels took interest in her music, and she signed a multi-album deal with Island Records.
While working on her debut album, the 18-year-old Sumner put together a small band called “I Blame Coco” with keyboardist Emlyn Maillard and multi-instrumentalist Al Shux (who produced Jay-Z’s chart-topping “Empire State of Mind” in 2009). Their sound encompassed a variety of styles like pop, ska, and electro-punk.
An early video from I Blame Coco – Avion. In this track, you can hear influences from her father’s music.
I Blame Coco began releasing songs in early 2010, including a duet with the Swedish pop vocalist Robyn, and later that year released their debut album, The Constant. This is the video for the duet with Robyn, “Caesar.”
In 2014, she announced that she would release music under her birth name, Eliot Sumner. The Information EP was released in August of 2014. Here is the video for the title track.
A pair of songs from that debut EP eventually made their way to her first solo full-length album, also titled Information, which was released in January 2016. Below is the video for “After Dark” from the Information album.
