Larrieux was born and brought up in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, New York City, New York. Her mother was a dance critic and professor, who encouraged Larrieux to grow up in a free-spirited, artistic environment. Many of her influences are drawn from R&B, soul, jazz, folk, hip hop, and gospel, with flashes of Middle Eastern, West African, and Indian ethnic styles. She lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters.

As a solo artist, her music is mostly categorized as fitting within the nu-soul genre, though she also dabbles in jazz, blues and gospel sounds. She sang lead vocals with Sade's band Sweetback while Sade was on hiatus. On her last album 'Lovely Standards' she gravitated away from nu-soul to produce a cover-album of those jazz and blues singers by whom she has been inspired. Larrieux is also influenced by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder and Prince as she has previously credited on her website.

Amel Larrieux (born March 8, 1973) is an American soul and R&B singer-songwriter and keyboardist. Larrieux rose to fame in the mid 1990s as a founding member of the duo Groove Theory along with Bryce Wilson. After leaving the group in 1999, she released her debut solo album Infinite Possibilities the following year on Epic Records. In late 2003, Larrieux founded her own independent label, Blisslife Records, on which she has released three albums so far. Larrieux cites Ella Fitzgerald, Prince, Rickie Lee Jones, Stevie Wonder, Shawn Colvin, Chaka Khan, John Lennon, Patrice Rushen, Jimi Hendrix, and Joni Mitchell as her musical influences.