Ella Mai

CTL-E-5726 · Person · musician · 1994–present

STRONG EVIDENCE evidence grade — master store (canonical CSV)

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-02569 · provenance: canonical master store (CSV), record CTL-P-0780 + build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5726. Master record source: Soul Train Awards build 2026-10-16 — sourced from Wikipedia ceremony pages.

Ella Mai, born Ella Mai Howell on 3 November 1994 in London, England, is a British R&B singer of Jamaican and Irish parentage who was named, per biographical sources, after Ella Fitzgerald. She studied at BIMM London and auditioned in the trio Arize on series 11 of The X Factor in 2014. Discovered through social media and her EP Troubled (2015), she was signed by DJ Mustard to his 10 Summers imprint of Interscope Records. Her EP Ready (2017) carried the breakthrough single "Boo'd Up," which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won Best R&B Song at the 61st Grammy Awards in 2019; the follow-up "Trip" reached No. 11. Her self-titled debut album (2018) debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, followed by Heart on My Sleeve (2022) and Do You Still Love Me?, released 6 February 2026 on 10 Summers/Interscope.

The record

• Also known as: Ella Mai Howell
• Role(s): recording artist

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Census Intake Wave 1 — 747 Program, Wave 7; first packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Ella Mai entity in the live graph at 3,443 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5726 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 3 — Famous Birthdays ABSENT census, readiness rank 199 (R&B Singers list). The census supplied the NAME ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black British R&B — diaspora scope (Jamaican mother, per sourced biography). Vital status: LIVING — third album released 6 February 2026 (Universal Music Canada). STATISTICS (sourced, dated): "Boo'd Up" peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won Best R&B Song at the 61st Grammy Awards (2019); debut album Ella Mai debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 (2018) — Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16. MEDIA: photo HELD (candidate: Wikimedia Commons and label/press photography of this subject exists; no file page was read at file-page level in this pass, so no image is cleared — CTL-PHOTO-001; a CTL-created graphic is the standing alternative); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5726-ella-mai.svg); video HELD (the Shorts Link Map catalog was checked by name and variants — no matching-entity CTL Short exists for this subject; the three catalog string-hits for "Ne-Yo" resolve to Nina Simone and John Coltrane rows, not Ne-Yo billings); audio HELD (no CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio; the subject's recordings are third-party copyrighted material). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging; the subject's own recordings are third-party )

Relationships

• Soul Train Music Awards 2018 — honored by
  STRONG EVIDENCE

Sources

• Universal Music Canada, "Ella Mai releases new album Do You Still Love Me?" (6 February 2026) — third album released 6 February 2026 via 10 Summers/Interscope; vital-status evidence — https://www.universalmusic.ca/2026/02/06/ella-mai-releases-new-album-do-you-still-love-me/ (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia, "Ella Mai" — born Ella Mai Howell, 3 November 1994, London; X Factor trio Arize (2014); DJ Mustard/10 Summers signing; "Boo'd Up" No. 5 Hot 100 and Best R&B Song Grammy (2019); "Trip" No. 11; debut album No. 5 Billboard 200 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Mai (build store)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Soul_Train_Music_Awards (verification source · master store)

Evidence note (master store)

Won Best R&B/Soul Female Artist at the Soul Train Music Awards 2018; Won Song Of The Year at the Soul Train Music Awards 2018; Won The Ashford And Simpson Songwriter's Award at the Soul Train Music Awards 2018 — per the published Soul Train Music Awards winners lists (per-year lists fetched in full during recovery Phase C, 2026-10-17)

More person records

• Chris Morrow
• Chris Rock
• Chris Womack
• Chrisean Rock
• Christine Houston
• Christopher J. Perry Sr.

Browse the full directory: all entity records

Record CTL-E-5726 · Combined Graph record U-02569 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph

Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

Cite this record

Citation guidance for teachers, journalists, and funders: How to Cite Us.

From the Archive

The archive in pictures

The people, places, and institutions this work documents. Photographs from the CultureTechLens research record — rights-cleared, credited, and cited like everything else here.