Marvin Humes

Marvin Richard James Humes (born 18 March 1985) is an English singer-songwriter, disc jockey, radio host, television presenter, and former actor.

Before rising to prominence as a member of the British boy band JLS, he had an acting role in Holby City.

Marvin Richard James Humes was born on 18 March 1985 in Greenwich, London.

He is the son of a Jamaican father and Scottish mother and is the middle child between two brothers, Leon and Jackson.

Humes started his music career in a band called VS which was created by Blue member Simon Webbe; however shortly after being formed and releasing an album, they split.

Humes appeared in Holby City on the BBC for three years from 2000 to 2003, playing Robbie Waring for 14 episodes.

At the age of 14, he starred in a children's programme called K-Club, which helped people with computers and how they work.

Oritsé Williams decided to get into the music business mainly.

He was originally scouted for a number of boy bands but did not feel they were right, Williams decided to form his own boy band and, through friends, met Marvin Humes who had experience in R&B and pop music, being a part of VS in 2004.

Next to join was Aston Merrygold, who was once cast in the ITV children's programme Fun Song Factory, because of his athletic ability.

Last to join the group was JB Gill, for his "musical ear" and harmonies.

They bonded, became friends and together they were called UFO (an initialism of Unique Famous Outrageous).

They signed to Tracklacers developing a sound they then called "Jack the Lad Swing", combining the phrase "Jack the lad" and the urban music of new jack swing.

While working their way into the music business, UFO instantly signed to Epic Records, before winning their first award in late 2007 at the Urban Music Awards for Best Unsigned Act thanks to their mash-up of "Stand by Me" by Ben E. King and "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston.

Shortly thereafter, they released their second single, "Slap Ya Elbow".

The group give credit to "DJ Triz" who produced one of UFO's first songs and helped them write it.

In 2008, UFO auditioned for the fifth series of The X Factor, but had to change their name because it was already being used by another group, so they decided to go with the name JLS (an initialism of Jack the Lad Swing, the style created with Tracklacers some months ago).

Following the elimination of girl groups Bad Lashes and Girlband in weeks one and two respectively, JLS were Louis Walsh's last remaining act in the competition, but throughout the live shows the judges called them the best band to come out of The X Factor.

In week 7, JLS were in the bottom two along with Rachel Hylton.

However, they survived, thanks to votes from Walsh, Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowell.

Cowell stated when casting his deciding vote that JLS did not deserve to be in the bottom two.

In week 8, JLS performed "...Baby One More Time" and received negative comments from two of the four judges, with Cowell saying "at the moment you're out", but after their second performance, "You Light Up My Life", Cowell commented that they were "back in the race" and that they could "have a hit record" with the performance.

In week 9, JLS performed "Umbrella" and "I'm Already There".

Cowell then predicted they would win the competition.

They made it to the final and performed their own version of the winner's song, "Hallelujah", which the other finalist Alexandra Burke also performed.

The public voted for the second time that night and Burke won the competition, JLS becoming the runners up.

They were the fourth band to make the final.

Following their success on The X Factor, Cowell's record company, Syco, were going to sign JLS; however, Cowell revoked this offer, having instead decided to focus on Alexandra Burke.

JLS's manager thought the band would be well suited to Epic Records, with whom they signed a record contract in January 2009.

Following their appearance on The X Factor, JLS signed to Epic Records.

Their first two singles "Beat Again" and "Everybody in Love" both went to number one on the UK Singles Chart.

The band's self-titled debut album was released on 9 November 2009, and has since sold over one million copies in the UK.

They also won several awards at the Mobo Awards for Best song for "Beat Again" in 2009 and also Best Newcomer in the same year.

JLS won the awards for British Breakthrough and British Single ("Beat Again") at the 2010 BRIT Awards.

As part of JLS, he achieved five number-one singles on the UK Singles Charts and a number-one album on the UK Albums Charts. As of December 2013, they have sold over 10 million records worldwide.

Humes has since ventured into radio and television presenting.

He previously presented the Monday–Thursday late-night show across the Capital Network.

He previously hosted The Official Big Top 40 charts across UK commercial radio stations on a Sunday afternoon, between 2013 and 2018.

Between 2014 and 2016, Humes hosted BBC One's The Voice UK with Emma Willis and created a DJ-Producer-dance act LuvBug.

Since 2019, he has co-hosted the game show The Hit List with his wife Rochelle Humes.