What you fail to forgot is how much importance the USA puts on looks. Yes, she is a singer and not a model, but she has to be marketable. The only way the ignorant record labels in the US know how to market someone is through sex. Estelle, to many -including me- is not sexy. In fact, I find it very uncomfortable to look at her, but she is normal looking. She is the girl you would see walking down Fulham Broadway going into Primark on a Tuesday afternoon.

Her voice is borderline adequate, her lyrics are not dis-similar to a ghetto Lily Allen, so what else can they possibly market her on?

This is not the first time that someone has been asked to change how they look to appeal to the masses. The actual interesting thing is if she complies. I know from her lyrics she has this I'm not going to change/I am an African woman/ I will not wear weave' attitude. So lets see how important that attitude is to her now she has the US market in her (freakishly large) eyes.