However famous British singer-songwriter Dido becomes (and, considering the
beauty of her forthcoming debut album, No Angel, stardom may be around the
bend) she’ll never demand a chauffeur.  “I love driving through London,” the
twenty-eight-year-old trills as she guns her red Ford Fiesta, eyes glued to
a windshield blurry with reflected street lights.  We’re fast approaching
Westway, “an inspiring stretch of urban decay” that connects Dido’s flat to
her second home, Swanyard recording studios in Islington.  “I have my
bestideas at seventy miles per hour,” she says.  “You zoom past a stranger
and imagine a whole life.  And,” she adds with a guilty smirk, the gas pedal
floored beneath her New Balance sneaker, “you can see into people’s houses!”
Voyeuristic kicks notwithstanding, music offers bigger thrills for the
classically trained performer (piano, violin, recorder), whose career began
when she entered London’s Guild Hall School of Music and Drama at age six:
“Ten years of influence, whether I like it or not,” Dido says.  “That’s the
appeal of singing: I haven’t had it taught out of me.”  She found her voice
during an audition for a student opera at Westminster (as in Abbey, where
she sang in the choir).  “A horribly posh private school.  There were 800
boys and, like, sixty girls,” she recalls.  “It was an amazing boyfest—and
the demise of my education.  I thought, Why am I practicing in my
room—alone—for five hours every night when I could be…?”
This hormone-induced musical hiatus lasted beyond graduation, as Dido
decided to follow in the footsteps of her book publisher father.  “Trashy
fiction was my specialty,” she says.  She quit her job three years ago to
sing with Faithless, her brother Rollo’s band; the resulting CD, Reverence,
went on to sell five million copies.  Dido’s subtly stunning voice—like her
music, it evokes Sarah McLachlan and Sinead O’Connor—caught the ear of
Arista Records president Clive Davis, who counts McLachlan, Whitney Houston,
and Janis Joplin among his discoveries.  Dido now channels her literary
ambitions into crafting lyrics.  (“I’m interested in the human side of love,
the mistakes we make in relationships,” she says.  “I write about small
moments—that one night, that one look—to get across a universal point.”)She
even co-produced the songs on No Angel, some under the guidance of Rollo,
others with Madonna collaborator Rick Nowles.
Her destiny certainly looks brighter than that of her mythical namesake, a
Carthage queen whose broken heart drove her to suicide.  “She threw herself
on a fire. A very passionate woman—I relate to that,” Dido acknowledges
while scowling in the rearview mirror at a man who foolishly tried to cut
her off.  “But I wouldn’t kill myself over a bloke.”