British singer Adele probes breakup with 21

With her album 21, British singer Adele again treads very personal territory, the bitter break-up of a recent romance.

The 22-year-old north London singer, who was born Adele Adkins but performs underher singular moniker, already has a pair of Grammy Awards to her credit. She also won the Critics' Choice Award at the Brits, the U.K.'s top music awards, back in 2008.

Her performance at this year's Brits gala propelled her to the top of the charts with the singles Someone Like You and Rolling in the Deep. When her album 21 also hit No. 1, she became the first living artist since the Beatles to have both a pair of top five singles and a pair of hit albums on theU.K. music charts. (Her debut album,19, had also shot up the charts following her Brits appearance).

A soul singer-songwriter with the powerful voice, Adeleexperimented with different musical styles on 21 including country, which she discovered on her 2010 tour of North America.

That tour marked a painful period, during which she recovered from a breakup and wrote the songs for 21, she told Jian Ghomeshi, host of CBC's Q cultural affairs show.

"It was quite hard, but I had to do it. I've always written my emotions down since I was really young. I felt like I was going on a real journey with myself," she said.

Adele added that she found it "devastating to fall out of love" with someone and only felt she had let go with the final tune she wrote, Don't You Remember.

"The artists that I love, I have to believe every single word they sing.[I've] got to make sure I believe myself, otherwise I'm doomed," she said.

Adele will begin a European tour later in March and will return to North American soil in May, with concert dates throughout Canada and the U.S.