Zayn Malik

Zain Javadd Malik ( MAL-ik; born 12 January 1993), known professionally as Zayn Malik or simply Zayn, is an English singer. He auditioned as a solo contestant for the British music competition television series The X Factor in 2010, where he ended up being a part of five-piece boy band One Direction, which went on to become one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. He left the group in March 2015 and signed a solo recording contract with RCA Records.

Adopting a more alternative R&B music style on his first solo studio album, Mind of Mine (2016), and its lead single, "Pillowtalk", he became the first British male artist to debut at number one in both the UK and US with his debut single and album. His subsequent collaborative singles "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" with Taylor Swift and "Dusk Till Dawn" featuring Sia were met with international success. He released his second studio album, Icarus Falls, in 2018, followed by his third album, Nobody Is Listening, in 2021. His fourth studio album, Room Under the Stairs, was released on 2024. He is set to release his fifth studio album, Konnakol, on 17 April 2026.

Malik has received several accolades, including an American Music Award and a MTV Video Music Award. He is the only artist to have won the Billboard Music Award for New Artist of the Year twice, receiving it once as a member of One Direction in 2013 and again in 2017 as a soloist.

Early life

Zain Javadd Malik was born on 12 January 1993, in Bradford, West Yorkshire, to an immigrant Pakistani Muslim father, Yaser Malik, and a White British mother of English and Irish descent, Trisha (née Brannan), who converted to Islam upon marriage. Malik has one older sister, Doniya, and two younger sisters, Waliyha and Safaa.

Malik grew up in East Bowling, Bradford, in a working-class family and neighbourhood. He attended Lower Fields Primary School and Tong High School (now Tong Leadership Academy) in Bradford. As a teenager, he took performing arts courses and appeared in school productions. He grew up listening to his father's urban music records, primarily R&B, hip hop, and reggae. He wrote raps when he was at school and sang on stage for the first time when singer Jay Sean visited his school. Malik also boxed for two years, from ages 15 to 17. Before beginning his music career, he intended to pursue an academic degree in English in hopes of becoming an English teacher.

Career

2010–2015: The X Factor and One Direction

In 2010, 17-year-old Malik auditioned in Manchester for the seventh series of reality television competition The X Factor. On the morning of the audition, Malik became nervous and did not want to attend, but his mother eventually forced him out of bed and coaxed him into going. He sang "Let Me Love You" by Mario as his audition song and was accepted into the next round. Upon auditioning for The X Factor, Malik stated that he was "looking for an experience". Despite being eliminated before the final round of the competition, judges Nicole Scherzinger and Simon Cowell grouped him with fellow contestants Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson to form a new contestant for the remainder of the show, the boy band that would become known as One Direction. The group quickly gained popularity in the UK, became the last contestant eliminated on the show, and were subsequently signed by Cowell to a reported £2 million Syco Records recording contract. They signed in North America with Columbia Records.

A book licensed by One Direction, One Direction: Forever Young (Our Official X Factor Story), released in February 2011 and topped The Sunday Times' Best Seller list. The same month, the boy band performed for 500,000 people throughout the UK as part of the X Factor Live Tour. The group's debut studio album Up All Night was released in November 2011 in the UK and Ireland. Released internationally in March 2012, they became the first UK group to have their debut album reach number one in the United States. It topped the charts in 16 countries. The lead single, "What Makes You Beautiful", was an international commercial success, reaching number one in the UK and number four in the US; it has since been certified four and six times platinum in the US and Australia, respectively. Subsequent singles "Gotta Be You" and "One Thing" became top ten hits in the UK. Following the release of the album, the band embarked on the Up All Night Tour. Initially intended to be solely a UK tour, dates in North America and Australia were added due to demand. Up All Night: The Live Tour, a video album documenting the tour, was released in May 2012. That same month, One Direction's first book to be licensed in America, Dare to Dream: Life as One Direction, was published and topped The New York Times Best Seller list.

In September 2012, One Direction released "Live While We're Young", the lead single from their second album, and it reached the top ten in almost every country it charted in and recorded the highest one-week opening sales figure for a song by a non-US artist in the US at the time. The album's second single, "Little Things", spawned the band's second number-one single in the UK. One Direction's second studio album, Take Me Home, was released in November 2012. The record sold 540,000 copies in its first week in the US and went to number one in 35 countries. Reaching number one on the Billboard 200, the group became the first boy band in US chart history to record two number-one albums in the same calendar year and the first group since 2008 to record two number-one albums in the same year. The group headlined their second concert tour, the Take Me Home Tour, in February 2013, playing over 100 shows in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Asia. The tour was commercially successful, grossing $114 million. In August 2013, the 3D documentary concert film One Direction: This Is Us was released, accumulating a box office gross of $68.5 million. One Direction's third book, One Direction: Where We Are: Our Band, Our Story: 100% Official, was released that same month.

In November 2013, the band's third studio album, Midnight Memories, was released. It was the best-selling album worldwide in 2013, with four million copies sold globally. The album's number one debut on Billboard 200 made One Direction the first band in history to have their first three albums all debut atop the chart. The album's lead single, "Best Song Ever", became the group's highest-charting single in the US to date. They embarked on the Where We Are Tour, their first all-stadium tour, in 2014; tickets sold out in minutes, and more shows were added due to "overwhelming demand". The band averaged 49,848 fans per show on the tour, which grossed over $290 million and was the highest-grossing tour of 2014, the 15th highest-grossing concert tour of all time, and remains the highest-grossing tour of all time by a vocal group. In September 2014, One Direction's fourth book, One Direction: Who We Are: Our Official Autobiography, was released. The group's second concert film, One Direction: Where We Are – The Concert Film, was released in October 2014.

In November 2014, the group's fourth album, Four, was released. The album was their fourth consecutive number-one album, debuting at number one in 18 countries and selling 3.2 million copies. Singles "Steal My Girl" and "Night Changes" both achieved platinum status in the US, among other countries. In 2015, the group began the On The Road Again Tour. On 18 March 2015, following the band's 16th show of the tour, it was announced that Malik had become overwhelmed with stress and would be absent for the remaining shows of the Asian leg of the tour.

One week later, on 25 March 2015, the band announced his departure. In the band's official statement, Malik cited his desire to live as a "normal 22-year-old who is able to relax and have some private time out of the spotlight", and denied rumours of any rift between the members, explaining that they had been supportive of the decision. However, in a December 2015 interview with The Fader, Malik expressed that he was unhappy with the group's musical direction, noting that "there was never any room for me to experiment creatively in the band" and "if I would sing a hook or a verse slightly R&B, or slightly myself, it would always be recorded 50 times until there was a straight version that was pop, generic as fuck, so they could use that version". In an interview given to Apple Music the next month, Malik stated that "I think I always wanted to go, from like the first year" and "I never really wanted to be there, like in the band. I just gave it a go because it was there at the time ... I instantly realised it wasn't for me, because I realised I couldn't put any input in".