Craig David Opens Up About His Painful Rise, Fall & Redemption

[0] Making moves, yeah, on a death floor.

[1] This means so, so much to me. Everything I touched was turned into gold.

[2] Everyone wanted a piece of me. How does an 18, 19 year old, deal with that?

[3] The height of success, when it is like, whoa, there's so much of the human part that's being unmet.

[4] I felt like I was starting to make music, the tick boxes.

[5] When I started to do a band in myself and I started to do things that just weren't in alignment, It was a point where I had dark thoughts, I was just like, I can't live my life like this.

[6] What people enjoyed from me was music, and I realized that from when I came back to London.

[7] I feel like the kid again, and trust me, the crowd are going to go off when they hear something soon, okay?

[8] So 22 years later, if you could whisper in the ear of your 14 -year -old self, what would you whisper?

[9] Listen, Craig.

[10] Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is the diary of a CEO.

[11] I hope nobody's listening.

[12] But if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

[13] Craig, I've got some lyrics that I wanted to recite to you.

[14] It's another day at school, and he's just walking out the door, got his rucksack on his back and his feet dragging on the floor.

[15] Always late.

[16] But when he's questioned, he can't think of what to say, hides the bruises from the teachers hoping that they'd go away.

[17] Even though his mum and dad, they both got problems of their own, caught in a catch -22, but he'd still rather be at home.

[18] cries himself to sleep in praise when he wakes up things might have changed but everything's the same that's from your record johnny from 2006 yeah that was a that was a that was a song i had to it was the first time i think kind of opening up and and expressing uh experience that i felt i had maybe on a lesser degree to a lot of other people in my school i think at school like in my, my secondary school, I've had a very, I had a beautiful upbringing, I enjoyed life, was a playful kid, I love music, but secondary school, all -boy school, went to Belmore and Southampton, and for the majority of it, it was great times, but when you come in in your early years and you've got the older, the older boys in there, and they're like, you've got two pound on you, no, I haven't got two pounds, and push you up again, you've got two pound on you, like, and then it's not a case of like, if you got the money, he's like, let me check in your pockets.

[19] Let me try and pull out the pockets.

[20] So as a lesser degree of the bullying, I was like, I was experiencing it physically in the corridors.

[21] So I kind of, so when I was starting to write that song, I was drawing from, I had to go to how did it feel when that was happening?

[22] And it was only happening with one, one guy in one period in the school.

[23] So I understood what bullying was.

[24] I mean, that was, I was, I was felt helpless.

[25] I couldn't, it was two years older, stronger, could rough me up if we really wanted to.

[26] But then also I was seeing other people who were getting a real, I was getting the psychological element, but there was a deeper side of that psychology of when they say tell the teacher, they'll deal with it.

[27] This is the thing with bullying is that I agree that it needs to be spoken to someone that you can confide in.

[28] But sometimes that kind of very rushing, you've told the teacher, they rush in, they, it's all out in the open, I was seeing kids who would then have the kid waiting outside of school for them.

[29] Or it might be that they're being bullied for someone from a different school even.

[30] So they'd be coming out to the school gates thinking, okay, well, I'm on my way home.

[31] No, it's about to start when you get on the bus to go home.

[32] So the whole world is now outside of school.

[33] You finish at 3pm and now it's beginning for you.

[34] So I felt deeply that I needed a right on that.

[35] And like I said, my mom and dad had their own things going on in their lives.

[36] And I spoke to my mom.

[37] I wrote the song when I was in Southampton.

[38] I got like a studio when I was down there.

[39] And I played it to her because I wanted her to also know that, Mum, you've always been supportive to me. Like if I needed to speak to you, if I needed to say things.

[40] But with bullying, there is an element where you want to say something to the closest person in your life, be it your family, so your mother or your father.

[41] And I wanted to really portray that in the song properly.

[42] But I wanted to have that combo with my mom to let her know.

[43] I knew that you would have always, if I needed to speak to, you would have been there.

[44] Because I do say, you've got your problems of your own.

[45] And I've tried to tell you so many times you're not listening.

[46] And that is the case.

[47] A lot of the cases of bullying that even family aren't listening.

[48] So who do you turn to?

[49] So music has been that, that song in particular, I think I was a journey.

[50] My grandma had passed away at the same time.

[51] It was, I just needed to get things off my chest that I felt like this is past a romantic love song.

[52] I need to help people in a way that wasn't trying to preach.

[53] You just let me tell stories, anecdotes, and I do it through music.

[54] And you were bullied for your weight back then as well, right?

[55] Yeah, well, the weight one was, it's funny because, like, you like, you like to tell the story differently.

[56] When you're in a slightly different place and position, you'll tell it like, no, you know, it was.

[57] And I like, I like everything about this is what your podcast for me has always, and I wanted to tell you off the bat, what I love about you is that you're bringing out so much, so much depth in people and you already know how much love I got for you anyway.

[58] Appreciate it.

[59] The being overweight thing, now I see it is actually in hindsight.

[60] It actually, it brought out so many things, wonderful things that had to kind of, that had been repressed for a long period of time.

[61] But at the time, the social standard was, you need to look a certain way.

[62] The captain of school football team tended to be the one that the girls were interested in you were the you were the slightly overweight one that they cry on your shoulder tell you all your problems have this real you have a real empathic uh relationship you'd be like what this is connection this is real relationship but we didn't want to take any further than that well he's the one look at the way he scored the goal look so then you've already got this early um imprint of what society expects of you and then you start trying to conform to that so there appear is where I'd look in walking down the high street and I'd look in the in the glass the reflection in the glass and I'd just be looking like you're just feeling sorry for yourself feeling like the jeans ain't fit in quite right and the jacket's not and you're getting bigger sizes and then you're just feeling like I'm doing all the fit I'm doing I could run I had some legs on me you know and probably boys that go away and they'd be like bro you run it you run it really fast to run it which part do you run it but I'll tell the story I'm on the mic now so I can move, but I was just carrying a lot of weight.

[63] But not unhealthy.

[64] I think there was a point that when it became unhealthy was when I realized that my weight had, I was like 15 and I think my weight had was starting to get to, I was 14 and my weight had got to 14 and a half stone.

[65] So I was starting to get over my age and weight.

[66] And I was like, maybe I need to slightly rein this in a little bit, health -wise.

[67] I ask these questions because, and I always start with childhood on this podcast.

[68] And I've reflected on this over and over again and thought, maybe I should start somewhere else.

[69] But I know from my own experiences that my own childhood traumas or the things that made me feel a bit invalid or insecure or felt feel shame when I was younger ended up being like the biggest drivers in my life.

[70] So when I sit here, I'm trying to find out why you got really into fitness and why you became, you know, who you became.

[71] I always start with like, what were the things when you were a kid that made you feel shame invalid like you didn't fit in.

[72] And those tend to be the pathway to people's, you know, people's greatness, a weird way.

[73] 100%.

[74] Like, it all, you're, you've got this, this period where your heart's open.

[75] You want to, you're experiencing life.

[76] You're a child, like, you said, you're a child, you're a puppy.

[77] You like, you just, you don't know.

[78] And then all of a sudden you get that, oh, is that, oh, that, oh, I can't do that.

[79] Oh, oh, that's the way to go.

[80] And then you're, you're, you're getting all that you're imprinting, all these patterns that only later you start to realize in, in your, in your, not even saying teenage years, I think it's still in an adolescent years at that point but maybe in your 20s start to unpack things if you're conscious you're starting to recognize that this doesn't seem to line up with my truth and then in your 30s for me it was like well I have to unpack all this stuff that was like the overweight thing because you're exactly right that it started then and listen I could I could eat sweets like cabbies boost bars were getting eaten like crazy I go to the newsagius before I went to school to get on the bus I'd be also I was selling chocolate as well So I had like a little Yeah yeah I was Early days entrepreneur Early days yeah You'd find the chocolate that was like Had about two weeks left before it was out of date And you I'd work that in my In my lessons like listen I knew I had like From nine till 11 Before there was a there was a tuck shop break So I could just set the tone as to how much I want to sell it for Well you want a Mars bar for yeah it's a pound 50 But we don't know pound 50 Okay brother wait till 11 then You can go get it for 35p whatever it I've got a pound then I'll take a pound The leverage was incredible right So I always had an affiliation And one of my favourite movies Is Willie Wonka in the Chocolate Factory So I think that's set the tone anyway I've got a bit of Augustus glooping me I've got I think we've got All the myriad of characters in that movie Is me and ultimately Charlie Like you know what I mean So yeah So it's just I've been unpacking it A lot of those things And realising that my health streak That I got went on at So when I was in sort of Miami or time and even slightly before that was all to do with this childhood thing of i've got to the six -pack the captain the school football team it's funny how like those things like you're like whoa and it wasn't even and the crazy thing with it is that when i got into the music when i start rewind start blowing up it was people just want to hear me sing yeah it was like they didn't care if my stomach was here there six -pack one pack two -pack and by the way everyone everyone has a six -pack underneath so just know that otherwise your stomach's going to fall out So if that's just a saving grace for everyone.

[81] Don't worry about the fat content and your fat percent.

[82] There's a six -pack underneath everyone.

[83] So walk out on the street and feel confident with that.

[84] That's great.

[85] Let's start telling people that.

[86] You talked in those lyrics, but then also then you talked about your parents.

[87] And you said there was, I know, again, that's another dynamic because those are the, for most people, the most formative figures in their life.

[88] Of course.

[89] What was the relationship with your parents?

[90] And you said they had things going on that were kind of, it sounded like distracting them from the things that were going on in your school life.

[91] Yeah, I mean, my mum and dad broke up, got divorced when I was eight.

[92] But the beautiful thing is that my dad always would come pick me up on the weekends on a Sunday.

[93] And it would either be going to, like, Poulton's Park, like go -karting, or I'd be helping him fix a kitchen, which I've got, I would say to my dad, like, dad, like, I was coming out to fix a kitchen.

[94] Like, like, can we?

[95] And I just, I remember the tools and it was dry and dust.

[96] And I figured, but I love those times for my dad.

[97] Yeah, he really made an effort.

[98] And I drives in his car playing reggae music, heavily influenced everything that I was going through.

[99] And for my mom, it was like she was working nine to five.

[100] So my grandma and my mother were pretty much raising me. My grandma would come pick me up from school when my mom was at work.

[101] So I had a lot of feminine energy in my life, which I'm really grateful for because it set the tone for how I wrote a lot of my songs, even seven days.

[102] I mean, I'm saying making love.

[103] A 17 years old, I'm writing a song.

[104] Who's saying making love on Wednesday?

[105] I mean, you listen to the songs now.

[106] They're not using that kind of language.

[107] But it was that I got, there's a respect I had for my, for my mother, for my grandmother.

[108] And the fact that even for my dad, I didn't want, I'm cussing out on record.

[109] My dad would just be like, yeah, we need to speak about this.

[110] So I just felt I got a really good upbringing.

[111] But at the same time, I didn't have a great model of family life at home.

[112] I got a lot of feminine energy and female love and tension and care and all the things that you love from your mum and grandma and then my dad was just like always had my back and I've got you but I've never seen them together so I think again looking at childhood imprints and patterns as how they affect you later on relationship with women was something I've always been really close to but I also had never had a model of how do you stay together with like the relationship part like I'm a romantic but if you look at your relationships like they haven't really worked out too well or you've been guarded and it's a journey of again of is this story true there's a point in which you've got to be conscious enough to actually ask that question and it tends to knock on the door and intuition's always there sort of saying we can have this convo if you want like I'll present you with the books I can present you with the click on the right podcast to go to I'll get you to we can unpack this someone will inspire you to do that.

[113] But there's also what I've seen now.

[114] And I feel I feel open enough to be apologetic for relationships that I didn't, my heart was closed off on the basis that not only from the family modeling, but also your first break, heartbreak.

[115] So for me, it was like I was so open.

[116] And I had that first heartbreak.

[117] And it just went from a kid who had his heart open and thought, this is it.

[118] were into me and it's going to, and then all of a sudden, it just crashed.

[119] And I was like, whoa, that feeling, and I'd never felt anything like that before where I was like, I didn't know who to turn to.

[120] It was like I felt that after, after early childhood sweetheart breakup, my heart had kind of closed down.

[121] And I feel sorry for the, the girls and women in the last days of my life who tried to open my heart up.

[122] And that's all they were trying to do.

[123] There's those things that went a bit toxic and went, but I have to own those situations.

[124] A lot of guys is like, yeah, the girl was like this or she was crazy.

[125] No, no, no, no, forget all of that.

[126] I walked into that and I stepped in with a certain kind of energy and I gave off a certain feeling and especially if you're having sexual relationships, there's a, there's an energy exchange between two people and you can play it off.

[127] It's like, no, but we had an unwritten agreement where it was like no strings attached and you can play that game as much you want.

[128] get enough calmer you'll start to see that there'll be someone who will be your teacher at some point and i thank everyone in my life that i've had relations with i thank you for teaching me in some way i want to go on record with that because i feel like it's something that i've always i now get it that i was moving a little bit reckless in the early times with the music and everything going on and there were there were people who were trying to get to my heart and i was just like no got this thing it's easier to keep it arm's length and it just doesn't worry like that so two questions on that then what was the evidence or the story that your parents your parents relationship taught you or left you with for better for us and then that first heartbreak what were the two stories those two incidents told you about relationships so having no modeling of what real relationship is it showed me early from from mum and dad as much as i love them with it all of my heart that being single is the best way to get through life.

[129] Just stay single because I never saw my mother with another partner.

[130] I never really saw my dad with another partner.

[131] And I have sisters and brothers.

[132] But I never, of my dad's other relationships they had.

[133] And I love them equally.

[134] But it's just I never had any clear reason to say that relationship works.

[135] And then it reinforces.

[136] So the story adds on later on in your life.

[137] You start to see how people are with each other who are in relationships.

[138] and you get friends who are in relationships and they may be cheating on their partner or you're seeing how there's been scenarios where a girl says she's in a relationship and thankfully it hasn't been husband already but there's been relationships I'm not going to be that the guy I say I've never met a girl who's in something and I tell you a story that is that I was breaking up we're not really in it but you're starting it's reinforcing the same thing of well stay single then don't get involved in all this because your heart will be protected and life is good and we can keep at arm's length then link that into the first break up first heart break heart was open gave everything relationship I'm all in like I'm gonna as a child as like okay it's hard psychologically you don't really understand what's going on in your in your family your parents but you just at school now I'm you see a girl you're falling for you and she's into you and it's all happening and it could have been I think it was only like about week week and a half yeah the break yeah it wasn't it was this one we're talking early early days But when your heart is fully open Yeah The crushing feeling I had after that Set the tone for the rest of my life Until now I've unpacked the whole thing Which all goes hand and hand With some of the songs I've written on albums before Where I'm talking about breakups There's a song called Thief in the Night Which is about a girl who Like, why did you have to end up being with my best friend Like there's moments where I'm looking back Thinking when I was writing that song What was I feeling?

[139] I was feeling the same heartbreak that I had the same zero understanding of what relationship is and now i see it's all about relationship it's all about opening your heart up again the same feeling that i think we both share when you said that you had your moments of the trigger points and you're like had to open up again and you met someone who met you at a place to help you through that which is even better when you meet something's conscious and gets it and says yeah i've got you i know baby steps if we need to but i'm with you yeah I'm at that place now where I'm like Do you think your heart's open?

[140] My heart's open man It's open in a way that I'm down If something tried to Try to close it down I'm open as much as I was When I first had my heart open And I wouldn't have said that Maybe a few years back The journey has kind of rapidly Kind of entered into a phase Where I just know that that's the truth of the matter And where are you relationship -wise?

[141] Single the moment which is again you have especially as a guy and I can really kind of speak on my experiences and we tend to our actions have to line up with the way that we're feeling and and I felt that there was times when I was talking to talk but the way I'm the way I'm acting is no different than what I was how I was acting before so then there's a part we have to pull back the faders and be like okay well this means that I can't enter into things where it's purely This had changed long, 10 years ago for me, that the objectifying of women, that thing, there was something where I had to just check myself and be like, what is this patterning that you have of a look and how someone's got to be?

[142] And that's all part of the same thing that was happening as a kid.

[143] That it was, it was very dreamy without the relationship.

[144] And now it's flipped.

[145] I look for a relationship in, I want to have a situation where I can connect with you.

[146] Now, regardless of the look, if we're not going to a place where we can go there, we can laugh.

[147] Laugh is one of the biggest values of any relationship.

[148] If someone makes me laugh cry uncontrollably, you've always got half of my heart already, yeah?

[149] Because that's going to save you when the relationship has its ups and down.

[150] So the down is when you need someone who can bring that.

[151] Because trust me, the romantic phase, as we all know, that's intoxicating, yeah, when you wake up after the hangover.

[152] And it's real, you're still having the same feeling.

[153] And love starts then.

[154] that hangover right then that's when you're going to ask yourself am I really in love the romantic thing that's this bit of sweetness have you had a long -term relationship see it would sound so short for so many people for me it felt long two and a half years was probably my longest relationship and same as me and even then like I don't feel like I open my heart I really felt that the girl was really trying to get me to to break down some walls And I go on record that as toxic as things can go With a little bit of time and separation You look at it back and you say Thank you because you taught me so much about how I was moving And how I was going on And I'm a better man for that Because now I can open up my heart like this Because a lot of guys don't want to talk like that They want to keep it cool Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah One of the other things talking about things That kind of invalidated us when we're younger Or that we were aspiring to I saw this quote And I actually saw a picture of the estate you lived on and it's going to say it's not the estate that I would wish to have lived on I don't want to criticise you know an area but it's not it didn't look I saw like a grey apartment block and it looked like a it was a council estate yeah and the quote you said was you were a kid looking out of your bedroom window at the estate car park imagining jacuzis do you know what I think to correct the quote even more yeah because the jacuzzi one like it's funny because I was talking about this only yesterday about like when I was speaking about film me in and I was like yeah I was like jumped in the jacuzzi and I was thinking what chakusa was actually jumping in because last time I checked you were in a two -bedroom flat with your mum yeah so the only jacuzzi were jumping it was your bath yeah so that's put that on record and you were in a four by four yeah okay cool so which driving license did you have at that point because you were only like 15 16 when you were right and so it was aspirations but looking out of that window overlooking that car park what my grandmother brought to the table in terms of like, I mean, the love, my mum, just from my family, I'm just very grateful for that upbringing.

[155] But my grandma, as grandmas do, and I make sure you get the right food in you, make sure you wear the jacket, you know what I mean?

[156] It's going to get cold, it's going to rain later on.

[157] And you're like, Grandma, then it rains.

[158] They just have this wisdom, yeah?

[159] But she had a beautiful little garden in the house that she lived, and it was like five minutes away from where I lived.

[160] And I was just like, that for me was enough as an, inspiration to say if I could have a house with a garden in Southampton we're good here I mean little did I know that how it would cascade from the music into yeah just that that times 10 in terms of just like my eyes being open but it was that inspiration for my grandma and I looked at the car park and it was like I kept me on my grind like council estate uh working class family growing up made me have to make ends meet where secondary school wasn't really setting me up for when I leave here.

[161] I was like I was already doing my market store selling of chocolates at school.

[162] Already had that going on.

[163] I was already doing mixtapes.

[164] So that was my kind of go -to in the barbers selling mixtapes for 10 pounds that I'd be doing at home, which would buy another piece of equipment that I'd get another pair of speakers or another mini -disc player to record on.

[165] Then I was getting a printer so I could print my own covers.

[166] Then I, I, I was, everything I kind of am doing now, weirdly enough, it's no different than what I was doing when I was a kid.

[167] I literally had my whole little factory of making tunes, trying to have a little business going on.

[168] So I can make ends meet in my way without having to try and pull money from my mum because she already had her own things going on and she supported me beyond.

[169] Like, I think she was going to deeply into overdrafts just to make my life feel comfortable.

[170] You've got the Sega Mega Drive, right?

[171] With the Sonic the Hedgehog and those games there, so I brought my memories for us.

[172] yeah you got the but when i think back there was the wherever my money was getting this money from like she was deeply in debt so when you look back you say mom the love i have for you like 9 to 5 and making me feel like i was getting everything then he and other kid was getting you know what i mean but and my dad you know what he support he would he would never no one could cross me no one no one could do anything bad to my dad have me they'd have to cross my dad and that was the kind of and that protection is good to a certain degree but then when you grow up up, that's not there to do the thing.

[173] So how, where's that part?

[174] So you're having to understand you've got so much feminine energy in me and that part, but I need the, speaking your truth, action now.

[175] So it's, the yang, it's the yang, my man. The yang, yeah, the yang.

[176] So you talk about music there.

[177] And one of the things that was really remarkable reading for your story is how early music came into your world and how early you started like selling mixtapes.

[178] And I sat here sat here with many musicians and it tends tended to happen a little bit later in life even diplo sat here last week and the diplo it was i don't know he was 25 or something before he really started going in music but you were you were young i know your dad had an influence on that because he was very into reggae yeah and he was in a reggae band right yes but where did music show up in your life and then and how did that obsession kind of like take hold um i mean it was early like i said when i earlier on when I said like you do a little high five when you come into the world that I feel that and you lose sort of the cognitive understanding as to what's going on and why we're here and but there's something intuitively that's pulling you in certain directions and as a child you very much honor that you just go in the direction so I was always intrigued by the little hi -fi set up my mom had it in the flat with a big box of records and I'd just be flicking through them and I and there was a vinyl in there there was Ebony Rockers which is by dad's reggae group which more recently there's a mural now in Southampton they've put on on Ogle Road.

[179] Huge moral that says about Ebony Rockers and I'm thinking, wow, I'm so proud of my dad.

[180] I was like, yes, Dad.

[181] Because you are a musician in your heart, bass guitar player.

[182] The group were talking about social issues that were going on in the 70s, 80s and being able to put that on record and talk about injustices that were going on in their lives in Sanampton and have it on record.

[183] you're getting recognized for that oh man like i just love love my dad for that it's like i'm just so happy for him so i was looking at records and i pulled out his record and i'd be like Ebony rockers and my mom would say yeah that's your dad's group and i'd be like early though i'm talking like five six years old looking like what my dad's in a group so i know that's definitely there's some lineage there there's there's DNA that's come through musically my mom was always into stevie wonder and michael jackson uh my first ever seven inch i ever bought was uh it was human nature.

[184] Oh, really?

[185] Michael Jackson?

[186] Yeah, because it was on a seven inch.

[187] It was in a, there was a little box next to the 12 inch.

[188] It's the first one I bought.

[189] That's one, let me tell you to it right.

[190] It was the first one I bought, first song I ever bought.

[191] So that's why, and I mean, look at the lyric of the song.

[192] I mean, it couldn't be any more perfect as a song of like being conscious and understanding the world.

[193] So yeah, so I had a, and there was there was a bit of Donnie Osmond in there.

[194] My mom was a big fan of the Osmond's, which was a, big group back of the day.

[195] Mixed with the stevees and the Michaels and, and then also have my dad's reggae, deep reggae from Beres Hammond to Sanchez, terra fabulous, Budja Bantan, Beanie Man, Bounty, like early, like I'm a sound man at heart.

[196] I think when I'm in the studio, people like, you literally are Bujabantan, but no one's actually like hearing you do this, yeah, because I go into this reggae, Kilimanjaro, David Rodigan.

[197] black cat sound system in me. So when I hear see Carnival, I'm just like, it's me sitting up and posted up with a little bit of rice and chicken, a little Budweiser by a speaker and I'm good.

[198] So yeah, man, that music started off early and then I just felt like it just was gravitating towards it.

[199] When was the first time you made music in any kind of context?

[200] First time I made music was my dad got me a high -fi system called Studio 100.

[201] For anyone who knows that, it was like a big box like huge like box with loads of faders on the front he came home one day like he came to the house said Craig I got you this studio 100 like whoa what I'm supposed to do this I have no idea so I had loads of faders loads of microphones with different colored foam capsules on the top it looked at the business with a with a record deck on top two twin cassette decks and lots of switches that I didn't understand what was going on but I was excited because I was like wow this is the first time I might be able to record something so I was just fully invest in and when you're kid you learn all the things you know all the so i started to record i would have said i was 11 11 12 years old when that came through and i you put a tdk cassette tape um there was a d90 was like the basic uh one or you if you were feeling kind of saucy with it you have like a chrome or a or a metal they were two pound 49 those ones but if you went for the normal d9 it was like a little 69p one i put i buy two of them you've recorded into one tape.

[202] So I put the first lead line of something.

[203] A lot of my early songs were just sounding like I was literally just lifting the vocals from every other song that I was listening to.

[204] And I didn't quite get the memo of, oh, we have to change the melody that much for it to not be sounding like I'm singing Jodacy freaking you.

[205] Or boys to men.

[206] Why does it sound like you literally just changed like the road to street on the end of the road?

[207] You have to do a bit more than that, which I kind of, you'll learn quickly if you don't get the memo, yeah?

[208] But yes, so I start to bounce the vocals down.

[209] So you sing onto one cassette, you put that in the bottom tape cassette, you then put a fresh one in the top, and you'd let that play and you record on tops.

[210] You were dubbing on top of your vocal.

[211] The quality was diminishing every time you did that, yeah, because this is old school stuff.

[212] But I was starting to finish a song.

[213] I was feeling very, very proud of myself that I could actually write a song.

[214] How old?

[215] I would have been like, yeah, like 11, 12 years old.

[216] 11, 12 years old.

[217] But yeah, that kind of led into, a world very nourished with R &B, reggae, but also the pop soul element.

[218] Territian Darby was the first show I ever went to at the Guildhall in Southampton.

[219] It blew my mind.

[220] I saw this guy, I was front row.

[221] I just saw him like, he was moving like Prince with Marvin Gay, but he had the voice of like a Stevie Wonder with Michael Jackson.

[222] The hard line, according to, album was like, it was like seven, eight million albums.

[223] It was a huge record for him with the breakout song, sign your name across my heart.

[224] Again, look at the messages, sign your name across my heart, yeah.

[225] I'm like, finally, we're getting the message now.

[226] I need to let someone sign it fully.

[227] You know what I mean?

[228] And capitals hold that.

[229] But changed my life.

[230] I was like, if I can, I'd love to do what that guy does.

[231] From 1112 where you're messing around with those cassettes to, I think when I've heard you kind of kind of recount it, your first break was winning that songwriting contest with damage, wasn't it?

[232] Yes.

[233] Was that, would you consider that to be your first kind of like break?

[234] opportunity you know what it's like it gave me it gave me the first taste of of um reinforcing that i could actually do this like i thought it was a break like i was gonna we've done it here yeah yeah i've written the song i'm ready it's on the back of it's on the b side of wonderful tonight the eric clapton cover which was the lead single i'm telling everyone in so it went to number two in the charts i'm telling all my friends that's because of obviously by song i'm ready not the classic wonderful tonight that they've covered right um but i thought it was off the back and i actually sang vocals on that did bvs on the song they let me come up to london met the guys i was just like wow this is like a dream country but i didn't off the back of it was like okay it was in the shops for a few weeks but nothing it went quiet after that how old were you when you won that songwriting competition for the boy band damage i would have said i was 14 around that so you start messing around with music at about 11 -ish you said, right?

[235] And then at 14, you win the songwriting competition for the boy band Damage.

[236] And that's what, like three years of just continuing to mess around and develop and practice and just play around with music, right?

[237] Between that time.

[238] Yeah, yeah.

[239] It was, and again, the support of my mom and dad in ways that now I'm just like so thankful for of bringing that studio 100 piece of equipment that for me to record, you know, my first record deck.

[240] All those things now.

[241] I was the kid looking through the music store.

[242] I wish I could have that.

[243] Wish I could get that one equalizer.

[244] I could mix it.

[245] I was just that nerdy with it.

[246] And they would always somehow have a 10 pound and a 20 pound ready for me to help me out.

[247] And I had my chocolate thing getting also.

[248] There's something really interesting about you saying nerdy with it because the guests that I sat here with, specifically the musicians, it always seems to be the case that when they were younger or just before, you know, maybe in the 10 years before they blew up or whatever, they were just like really nerd.

[249] with music there wasn't really an intention of being the greatest or getting the number one albums they were just like obsessed even wretch 32 when he sat here was the same thing he was just clearly just nerdy with it very very young age and I think that's that's really important to point out because the pathway to getting to where you got to in your life isn't that doesn't appear to be um or at least the starting point doesn't appear to be this obsession with becoming a superstar it's this kind of nerdy fascination because you spent three years between 11 and 14 just messing around with cassettes on some piece of hardware that your dad bought you.

[250] Yeah, of course.

[251] It did feel that my obsession with music, like when I look back, and it's different now because I have the same kid in me that wants to do the same thing that I may have done in those periods of time, especially when I start collecting vinyl.

[252] I knew every producer.

[253] I knew where the snare was on this track was taking from a changing faces song over there.

[254] And this record over here uses the kick drum.

[255] from there the bass is used I was in it like I had everything in alphabetical order with the plastic sleeves that they all went in room was getting to the point where I couldn't fit in my room for records so I was really living it to the point where I'd swap shop with records I'd be like the other DJs would say I got to London get records bring them back those days DJs were the go -to like he wasn't like he'd go on new music Friday and you get thousand songs to kind of to look through it was like if the DJ played in the club you better go speak to the DJ find out where he got it from because he's got there's 10 copies maybe and there's a promo that's not going to come out for six months literally songs were like you had time because it was physical where you're going to go you can't copy this unless you've got a lathe then you're going to start to print acetates in your house so you had to wait so I'd when you went out to London especially because this was like the hub for where everything was being made and printed up I come back sometimes from Salampton with some record.

[256] DJs all know, where you get that, Craig?

[257] Where you get that?

[258] I say, yeah, you know, I'll swap you.

[259] A Faith Evans.

[260] I just can't.

[261] And a jade for the tune that you got.

[262] And I said, maybe give me a little 10 pound extra for that.

[263] You could, you could, it was all vibes, man. It was such a fun time because things were slower.

[264] And I love it now, but it's just there's a lot to get into.

[265] There's a lot of music being released just to keep up with the flex of it.

[266] between 14 and 18 then what happens then for you i'd gone from the songwriting competition a moment where it was like okay this is the this is the thing but then it can tarried on where okay this wasn't necessarily at a big breakthrough heavily into the into collecting records i started to DJ early on i was emcee at first for another DJ called DJ Flash who i respect so much because he brought a lot into my life to to be able to to be a chaperone for me, really.

[267] He knew my dad, and he was 10 years older than me. And at 14, I looked a little older as well, so I could kind of get, I could style it to get into clubs with him.

[268] And he'd let me be his MC, so I'd be called MC Fade.

[269] And I was just like, you know what I mean, the fade was Chris, and I just thought that was the, and then he'd give me like a, he'd give me a little slot to play, maybe a little 15 minutes at the end of his DJ set.

[270] So in Southampton, And he was playing most of the kind of big clubs there.

[271] And he introduced me to the Cajun Zoo in Bournemouth.

[272] We do a couple of shows in Portsmouth.

[273] So I was like his, I was his MC and also his box boy as well.

[274] Because trust me, the back was getting like smashed, picking up those heavy boxes, yeah.

[275] It's different.

[276] When you're wearing the chain with the MP3 on it, it's different when you're picking up those boxes, right?

[277] Your squat game's got to be really on the point.

[278] Your glutes will be fired up.

[279] But I'd always do this thing with him where I'd be like, Flash, I think there's actually that girl over there I was just trying to find like a girl he had his eyes on and he'd be watching all through the night I'd be like, I think she keeps looking at you man you need to go, you need to go and speak to her he goes, yeah, but I goes, don't worry, I got you I'll let me, you go and she's gonna go and it's all gonna okay cool, leave, handle the four I'll handle the fort, don't you worry.

[280] So I play like a little half an hour thing, yeah, he's skirting around should I go and speak to her, should I, and he's just standing next to her, he goes over for the move she blows him out completely because you're never looking at him at all for the whole thing right.

[281] I've got a 30 minute DJ setting then he's come back like great it's like she did it even I goes I know she was looking at you all the time I'm not sure you got to find your ways yeah but I learn from between that 14 to to really to 16 was a period of DJing intensely then I started to go off and do my own DJing sets with MC Alistair who was part of the artful Dodger who does MC sets now and then it was kind of it was moving I was at college I'd come from secondary school now I was at college, a city college.

[282] I was doing an MVQ level two in electronics.

[283] It was like the closest thing I could get to music because there wasn't like production courses that they do now, which would have been great.

[284] Back then it was like, how do you forge a trumpet out of metal and how was, how do you make a guitar from scratch with wood?

[285] And I'm like, you know, I just want to know how Timberland makes that or Rodney Jackins makes the vocal sound so good.

[286] Could someone show me that?

[287] And there wasn't a course.

[288] So I thought, let me do electronics, because at least that gets me closer to circuit boards.

[289] Richard Sounds was around the corner.

[290] I had some wicked equipment in there.

[291] I thought even if I got a job working there would be great.

[292] I'd be near deck decks.

[293] I'd be near twin tape cassette decks.

[294] Maybe I can get a little discount.

[295] So that was my road.

[296] I was going down DJing, MCing there.

[297] Never thought it would necessarily me meeting Mark Hill and Pete Devereaux from the Artful Dodger, which is where it really then transcended.

[298] Tell me about that.

[299] So in one class, It was called Old Orientals, 10 minutes around the corner from where I was living with my mom.

[300] Was DJ in downstairs, R &B hip -hop set.

[301] Upstairs was House and Garage night.

[302] Mark Hill and Pete Devereaux, who the original Artful Dodger, were playing upstairs.

[303] Now, these are early doors for garage music.

[304] So you're hearing, like, It's a London thing was playing.

[305] Scott Garcia, which was like a classic garage tune from them days.

[306] and there's even like the lessons in love I was coming through Robbie Craig and there was just tunes completely in play and I always got to pop my head up and be like it wasn't packed up there but I was just like this is a vibe it's got like it's like they're layering R &B stuff now it fell over this skippy what do you call it?

[307] I know what two step was it was like is a speed garage it was some weird like some eclective thing that's not house but it feels UK and then all of a sudden we got into conversation and I was talking about all these songs that I've been recording at home where I didn't have a producer or someone who could create the music for me I was using instrumentals and stuff to just sing over like you'd hear a freestyle and literally that I mean this is where it's so divine like the serendipity of it was so beautiful Mark Hill who ended up producing the whole of Born to do it album said I've been looking for someone who writes songs like I do music like I've got the music thing like that but I need somebody who write songs you can sing and I was like this is a perfect marriage and he says oh got studios like five minutes from here at a place called ocean village and i was like you can't even make this up like it's it was the club like my my flat the old oriental's place that we met the studio was literally within a 10 minute walk it was like all perfectly planned and then from that the next thing i did was record a song called uh what you're going to do which was the first release from artful dodger and i remember it being printed up on a on vinyl they did their own thing boxed it all up i felt sweet when you're on a vinyl i thought it made it at that point i was in vinyl yeah and they got up in a van and they took it up to london they go into the record stores and they say look we got them to take two boxes here at this record store and uh so in darby street and soho records there and briskston we've got some i was like and something started to build my man like i can't i was like just happy to be on a record but then all of a sudden i was getting people saying who they've come back down from london and saying, I'm hearing your tuning and playing on pirate radio stations, you know.

[308] I'm like, what?

[309] I'm hearing, like, it's going off.

[310] Drop the funk, drop the bass, hit it.

[311] And I'm like, what?

[312] Are you, and I like, but then random people saying, oh, I was coming out from London.

[313] It's getting played.

[314] Like, I went to a club.

[315] It went off.

[316] The DJ span it like four times back to back.

[317] Something was bubbling.

[318] And next thing, you know, I got a call from public demand who were the label that were, that had got invested in that, in that record.

[319] They've done a license.

[320] deal for that song.

[321] They said, do you want to come up to London start doing some, some PAs and some performances for this song?

[322] And so I'd love to.

[323] So I'd call up my mate Clinton and his yellow fiesta.

[324] Remember clearly, got a Jamaican flag in the back.

[325] Yeah, just like he had it proudly there.

[326] He had like the sub speaker in the boot going crazy.

[327] I think was tuned up like he was coming, going to Nottingill Carnival.

[328] Yeah, the sound system was way more than the car, right?

[329] Sounded Chris.

[330] So up there, I'd slip him like 50 pounds to get me up there, get me back.

[331] And literally I go up, I was getting like 250, 300 pound for a PA, which was good money.

[332] I'm like, wow, this is real money now.

[333] From selling chocolates to this kind of money, I can buy this record, I can buy that.

[334] And I go to the Coliseum in Vauxhall, the end.

[335] And I started twice as nice was the big name at the time.

[336] And I got at then seeing what you're going to do.

[337] And I'd go on stage and I was this young 15 -year -old kid, I was 16 at the time, walked out.

[338] and the DJ even more like any DJ could play because the Artful Dodger we had this sort of agreement that if Artful Dodger were with me performing we're doing a set together we'd sort of half the amount for the fee and if I was going off doing a performance then I would just take the money and if they did a DJ set somewhere they'd take it so we'd just have a nice little agreement going on so I'd go up there and a DJ would you say you ready ready I thought yeah I'm ready and he'd be like drop the funk draft the bass here and that's for the first time walking out seeing it go off I was just like This is mad.

[339] And before I even got to sing, the guy, they're spinning it up and everyone's going, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo, Bo.

[340] Which is where led to Bo Selector with Rewind.

[341] Why I was saying that in the song.

[342] It's like, Bo Bo Bo Salerta.

[343] That was the phrase as a cultural reference for that music.

[344] And I think that that's where it kind of just, it just was exponential after that.

[345] It just went from what you're going to do, then Rewind was starting to go, do its thing.

[346] And people were just losing their minds to that song.

[347] Like, I remember my first person performed PA of that song, I wasn't sure if the crowd were feeling it because it goes into this baseline in the chorus, which is very, it feels like a halftime R &B record.

[348] So it's like, so it's like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

[349] So it's like, re -e, wind.

[350] When a crowd say, but the legs are, re -ewind.

[351] You just got the bass line.

[352] It's half -time.

[353] You could just be slow jam.

[354] And I saw people literally, they were standing like, and it wasn't like we're not feeding it, It's like, we don't know what to do here.

[355] Yeah.

[356] Like, because the verse is making moves, yeah, on a dance floor.

[357] You've got the garris things, cool.

[358] And then it goes, do, do, do, do.

[359] And people are like, and then when it, and that was this USB in the end, people were like, that does that tune that does that half time.

[360] I don't know, a baseline thing, but it goes slow, and it set the tone for the whole thing.

[361] That song right there, still, it's like my baby.

[362] Because I felt it when I walked home with my Sony Walkman, when my headphones on, on my jacks jones just like walking back like just listen to it thinking i don't need the son songs where i don't need any feedback i don't need some tell me what they think about it how they feel i know in my soul this here is the one and it wasn't the one from it's going to go off in a club it's just going to go off when i go back to my flat i had a huge subspeaker that was probably bigger than me yeah that i had in the corner bigger than most of my room i had to squeeze my bed out almost to get it in when i pressed play on that and it came from be that speaker.

[363] I was like this.

[364] I'm good.

[365] I got the full feeling that I needed.

[366] So from then I was like, if this is the same for anyone else and they feel like this, then it's gone clear.

[367] And it ended up being going on like.

[368] And that is a timeless record.

[369] I mean, I listened to it before you came in here.

[370] So I was listening to it.

[371] And I was like, fuck, it's going to come out last week.

[372] You know what I mean?

[373] It feels like that.

[374] Do you see what I mean?

[375] Like I played out.

[376] I was like, this could be, this would be a hit now.

[377] You know what I mean?

[378] You know what I mean?

[379] there.

[380] 100.

[381] It's that, it's a, it was a cultural record.

[382] It was, it feels very timeless.

[383] Like I did a show the other day, or even yes, last night and I drop it in, the millennials are going crazy for it.

[384] The day ones are there going like crazy.

[385] It's just like, it's, it's one of those ones.

[386] Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean?

[387] So that leads you up to the, to the point where you start to release your first solo single, fill me in.

[388] Yeah.

[389] Talk to me about that and that whole process because that went straight to number one.

[390] From what you've said, I know it changed your life, right?

[391] From doing doing these PAs and clubs to doing, I think you did Wembley three nights in a row or some crazy, crazy, in the space of a couple of months as well.

[392] Yeah, I mean, it went like from like zero to 100.

[393] Literally.

[394] That's why it was kind of like, behind the scenes, funny enough, even though I say zero to 100, there was a lot of learning curve that I was learning.

[395] So doing the DJing, doing performances in front of a club, a club PA, Or even before that, when I was doing my DJ and stuff as an emcee, when the vinyl's skipping and the crowd are looking at you, like, yo, and you've got to improvise quickly.

[396] So a man's going into some kind of MC, like, you know, some of them are mad, some of them I laugh, something, hold a mic, trying to find another beat of vinyl to put on, because this one's going to keep skipping.

[397] My, hopeless, hopeless, when I write, blah, blah, blah, like this, jump around in my adidas, Craig.

[398] And everyone's just like, whoa, and then I get it to mix somehow perfectly, yeah?

[399] And I'm sweating, yeah, because I'm thinking I nearly mashed the whole thing.

[400] And after people come up saying, Greg, I was sick when you did that thing.

[401] How did you do that?

[402] Why are you sweating so much?

[403] It's not even hot.

[404] The air conditioner is blast and I was like, if only you knew.

[405] But it teed me up for performances going forward.

[406] So when we got to film you in, I can just remember something happening when I was doing, there was a club called Sound, I think it was, on Leicester Square.

[407] And at this time now, Rewind had been released.

[408] It's gone to number two.

[409] People didn't really know who I was.

[410] They knew the name, which was, you know, you can get that was always the using the name was always like a tag the DJ tag thing like you put your name DJ Khalid would do it it'd be like I'd be like Craig David all over yours so you knew who was on the record just in case you you're confused yeah and then that then became sort of my intrinsic trademark thing that I did throughout that born to do an album um so it'd just be like Craig David it's another one like all that kind of stuff um but yeah I'd remember doing this a performance I'd had interview in Capital FM and I had to get across Lester Square to go and do this performance of it and sound, which Capital were doing like radio performances from there.

[411] I knew something had really changed when the security, there was a security guard and he had to put me up.

[412] I went there with their, just being calm.

[413] I went into Capital to do the interview.

[414] The security guard had to put me up on his shoulders to get me across Lester Square to sound because there were fans going crazy.

[415] Crazy.

[416] Like, real, I could, for a moment in that period of time, the Justin Bieber thing, the, even before the drakes.

[417] I mean, it was like, it was that fever pitch where it was just like, whoa, BTS flex.

[418] It was like madness.

[419] Like pandemonium.

[420] I just like, whoa, ripping, pulling.

[421] Like it was, whoa, I was thinking something's changed.

[422] And I went on to do the performance and then film Ian was, was building up to be my first number one.

[423] And it was my first solo single that.

[424] I went to number one, and it was a song that was released the same day as Destiny's Child saying my name.

[425] So to have a number one in the charts with a group that I've grown up with posters on my wall and, like, thinking, this is crazy, saying my name is one of my favorite R &B songs all time.

[426] So just to fulfill me in to do what it did, I knew something that changed.

[427] I just knew, well, it was quite obvious.

[428] And I was on this wave.

[429] It was euphoric.

[430] There was nothing I can, I can put my finger away.

[431] It was like it was it was everything but more it went from everything I touched was turned into gold because everyone wanted a piece of me and I was doing acoustic performances which was to give a different feel for film me in which I think was a really clever move from at the time my record label was was half owned by my now manager Colin Lester tell star and capital were involved and it was just like we wanted to find ways that it just didn't exclude me from other radio stations and made it feel like it wasn't just this radio thing so we did performances like on tv Fridays and on jules holland which were acoustic and all of a sudden i went from the rising garage quote start to wow it's actually a song here he's writing songs and then the next songs i think kind of reinforced that it wasn't just just garage and then from seven days and then to get to walking away because walking away it'd gone clear at that point really had gone clear like we were I was in France nearly every other week in Paris doing uh radio interviews and I'd be in in doing a whole of Scandinavia then I'd be in Germany then we'd be getting a flight over to America and it just started the whole how old were you through this period so you start I mean film me in was when you were 18 yeah so yeah so within the album dropped the same year so 2001 was when I went over to the states so it would have been like 19 like how does how does an 18 19 year old deal with that because you know with all the attention comes a lot of negative stuff it's like unavoidable it comes with the territory even with the like the fame and people clambering on you and stuff it changes your psychology takes a shift or you find out who you really are right they say that a lot like you find out what you're demons right because now you got the money you got the power you got this admiration so talk to me about like the the other side of that that meteoric rise I'd say channeling in of how I, or chewed in into how I was at that time, I say it was euphoric.

[432] There was, I was like, whoa, everything's new.

[433] You're doing new places and going to the best restaurants and your eyes are wide open.

[434] You're on a plane to this country.

[435] And I went, I was at the House of Blues in America doing, we had three nights there.

[436] And the first night, and I tell this, because it kind of just to give context to how bizarre it was.

[437] So, remember I've come from your flash I think that girl actually over there let me do a little mix for you over here get a little half an hour in a set jump fast forward a few years later House of Blues three nights in a row first night Missy Elliott has come to to watch the show I'm looking up thinking this is crazy like I can't stand the rain and just Missy Elliott it's the hot next night I'm there I look up in the same balcony Jennifer Lopez is there I'm like wow and I want to sound like I'm name dropping but I wanted to be to give context.

[438] It's just this facts here.

[439] The following night, sorry, how am I missing this?

[440] It was Missy and Beyonce.

[441] Fuck off.

[442] Then it was Jennifer Lopez.

[443] Then on the last night, I look out into the crowd and there's a lot of kind of attention on one in particular gentleman that's in the crowd who's singing.

[444] I couldn't quite work out because the lights were too dark.

[445] So I got the front house to turn the lights up.

[446] And I look in the crowd and I'm singing walking away and I look over and I see Stevie Wonder.

[447] You've seen you walking away.

[448] And I'm just like, I mean, what do you say at that point?

[449] I would, I felt emotional.

[450] I felt, because it was Stevie Wonder from the record collection from my mom's stuff.

[451] Beyonce, I've got Destiny's Child on my wall, had Jennifer Lopez on my wall, Missy Elliott, I don't even listening to before I come up.

[452] It was just like, you can't make this up.

[453] It was almost like, yes, you behind the scenes and bam, here it is.

[454] And then I got to meet him at the end.

[455] And he'd come with Quincy Jones.

[456] who we all know as the producer of all of the huge hits for Michael Jackson.

[457] And then Quincy said, you know, like, MJ, he said it even more like coded.

[458] He was like, yeah, M, he said.

[459] It's like M's got your album.

[460] This is just like vibe and I said, oh, M. Yeah, you know, MJ and Michael, Michael's got like he's got the album.

[461] He loves born to do it.

[462] He's been listening and gave it to his friends.

[463] I was just to stop this.

[464] If we can, if this is, if this is the thing, We've arrived, we're good, I've got my fix.

[465] There's not much more I could ask for.

[466] But it was literally the start of an incredible roller coaster ride, which the later years, I think, which we get into, it hops back to that and I can see where the cracks were starting.

[467] Because to answer your question about the other side of it, it was so euphoric and I was so swept up on it.

[468] It was like getting on a surfboard and actually being on the wave.

[469] And you're doing, I never use this word, but like the most gnarliest like you're the gnarly wave it's gnarly you know what i mean you're it's a rip rip girl and it's going crazy you're through the middle the eye of it you're on it you're not coming off but then there was a point when the next album slicking and your average dropped which was only like a year or so later 2002 had great success with watch your flavor and and the songs were hitting but there was this born to do it had now done seven million albums.

[470] Six times platinum.

[471] Six times platinum.

[472] It's still, still crazy.

[473] And when you said about the Wembley Arena, three times sold out, I'm standing outside the sign.

[474] I've got it in my mum's house.

[475] Like there's a picture of, I'm like, you just can't make it up.

[476] It was so beautiful and I'm so grateful for those times.

[477] But I started to see from the slicking your average time where the record label would already start to quote a, I was going to do 10, 11 million obviously slicking your average because now the trajectory is going to be has to go high on this so then when the album ended up coming out it ended up selling 3 .5 million albums I'm 3 .5 million albums yeah at the time I remember that there was this feeling in the company of oh right only 3 .5 and I'm I'm impressionable I'm a young kid I don't know I just got into this the music business and you're telling me that that's not a good thing because the last time I checked the feeling I'm getting is I just saw 3 .5 million albums give 3 .5 million to any artist now like we're good we're we're so I'd already start to buy into there was some it was there was a trajectory was starting to go in a different place that that I wouldn't even know about figures I didn't really care about albums sales I was just like I'm just happy to be here and I'm making music and I'm doing what I love my dream But that was the first learning curve of the defining of product and defining of you being a commodity that has to achieve something now that you've set it up here.

[478] Whereas I thought it got fun when you start to do it.

[479] I thought it got more playful.

[480] No, no, it got more serious.

[481] And there's more cooks in the kitchen.

[482] And everyone's got an opinion of the song you should be releasing.

[483] Expectation.

[484] Beyond.

[485] Expectation.

[486] The curse of all happiness and joy.

[487] You must know this.

[488] You're just trying to equate what yourself.

[489] of worth through so many other people's expectation of you, like you said.

[490] So I'm trying to say, okay, cool, well, we're here.

[491] I'm a songwriter.

[492] I'd always, I'd always had a really great rapport with my manager, Colin Astero's been in me like for, I got, I love the conversations that we've, we've had over the years and, and him even saying at early doors that I can't guarantee you success.

[493] I'll do everything in my power to, to protect you and keep you safe so you can do your thing and having those kind of confidence in the people that you're working with is it's paramount when you do start to get these the feedback trickling through because I never was like oh yeah what are today's midweeks I wasn't really too interested in like finding out all the stats because what happens is and you can get this now and I say this to any aspiring artist who's putting music out now and you're having success is literally just enjoy it fully be immersed in it because if you start to check for what's going on next week your moment when you're supposed to have the number one and you're enjoying life, you're already going to be able to see by Tuesday, Wednesday, that your numbers are already showing that you're already number now.

[494] You've slipped off and they're number one.

[495] So your moment of glory was actually, there was the curve and at the point where you got the thing, which is the beautiful metal number one, or you're already kind of on the decline.

[496] So it's that I had to ride that for a few more albums, if I'm being on it's to I was making songs and they were connecting but if it was a number four in the charts it wasn't number one like it was before haven't got the same amount of time that I had to make those songs I've got haven't got enough life really all this sorts of those first albums there is seminal because it's all your life up until that point right and then after that the expectation is we need it on a deadline and we need it this time and you've got hit this in the mix of the fact you're doing a hundred interviews and you're doing you're flying all over the place, but still you've got to conjure up that thing.

[497] I don't know any artist that won't feel that.

[498] And that's often kudos to anyone who is able to sustain that, but as a human being, I know that's a tour order for anyone to be able to continuously do.

[499] And you start to see with any of the artists who we put in from the Amy Winehouses to the Michael Jackson's to the Whitney Houston's.

[500] The height of success when it is like, whoa, like otherworldly, there's so much of the human part that's being unmet that it gets to a point with breaking point and then something happens, be it's drug addiction or if it moves into mental health issues and depression, which are all so real, that no human can vibrate at that level for that amount of time.

[501] And I'm thankful for those moments that kind of shaved off a little bit of the it being all go, go, go, because I think that it kind of made me. have to go back to a lot of things that were, like when my grandmother passed away, which on the next down story goes, I was back in my heart again.

[502] It's like I'm writing a song like Johnny about bullying, or I'm talking about let her go, a song I wrote from about my grandmother to my mum to say, look, I know it's crushing you, you lost your mum, and I've lost my grandma, who's pretty much raised me. Here's a song, and I want you to hear it.

[503] Those things, it started to get back in my heart, because we can get heady.

[504] And when it starts to get heady, you're out of, you're not in sync.

[505] with this.

[506] This is the real brains.

[507] And I've learned that now.

[508] It's not.

[509] This is a loyal servant to the heart.

[510] But if you go from here and then you can find the ways to get to A to B, but it has to start from here, you know.

[511] And you described that journey as a roller coaster.

[512] So at what, at what point did that roller coaster start heading down from that place you describe as euphoria to a place where you weren't euphoric?

[513] Talk to me. Talk to me. about the down part of the roller coaster?

[514] I'd say when I released the Trust Me album in 2009 it just felt that there was, from where I'd started off with very cultural records like rewind and fill me in which is why we talked earlier of how those songs you can play the now and they still seem to hit.

[515] When I look at 2009 and the Trust Me album I felt like I was starting to make music that was to please, please people and to tick boxes.

[516] It was like I was, there was a song called Top of the Hill, which is a lovely song.

[517] I love the song, but if you listen to that song to how it started off, it was very far removed.

[518] The type of music was becoming very live and it wasn't as, it wasn't as synth -based.

[519] And so which I'd drawn all my inspirations from as a kid.

[520] And that's not to say that you can't experiment, but I knew at that point I was entering into a new space.

[521] and then by the time I released that album which I was proud of I'm always proud of the music I put out but it wasn't connecting as well Science Hill Delivered was an album that I did just after that which was I was out of a deal at the time just because I'd run the tenure of my deal so it was kind of a fresh start I could look at different record labels Universal were excited so we did a deal with Universal then I was put out this album called Science Hill Delivered which was a covers album.

[522] And I was singing like, Dock of the Bay and the title song, Sinesill Delivered from Stevie, but verbatim like the originals.

[523] It wasn't some chopped and screwed.

[524] It wasn't an R &B version.

[525] It wasn't a garage thing.

[526] It wasn't like your, it was like...

[527] The same song.

[528] The same song.

[529] And I felt like it was time that I needed to just sort of check myself and just be like, are you getting the fun out of this like you used to?

[530] Do you want to continue making music like this?

[531] and thankfully the world always the universe always sort of mirrors everything that you're going through so it mirrors your state of play of where you are so I always felt that I was if the feeling I was getting was being mirrored back I'm not quite feeling this so the world says cool I'll give you more of you're not quite feeling this in your circumstances that happen around you whereas when I was the kid growing up making the first album I was feeling everything I was feeling the song on the way home from the studio I was feeling it on my sub -speaker at home I was feeling those rides up in the car to do the performance it was feeling and now i check in with that deeply because i know that anytime i'm not feeling it act from that not from the head saying well i don't know seal had a big covers album at the time i think that was a good reference point he had a huge covers album was doing serious numbers and that was the sentiment that universal were presenting like do a covers record no brainer you can sing these songs motown going to be good it's a soul thing and then springboard off the back of that with your own album that was the the play was never really worked out that way because it didn't really work out as an album it didn't hit the way it did and there was no next album that came from off the back of that there was a period of time where I was like I was out of the scene for a second and what and what did you do then this is when you moved to Miami yeah so I was in I was in Miami from 2010 so it's like about a year after that album and I was there for about five, six years.

[532] For the first two, three years, the best time probably of my life being out there.

[533] Anything and everything that you could possibly think of Miami being and what it was representing.

[534] But the latter period of that period, that time was where something was ringing inside of me of you're in the wrong place.

[535] And this is what intuition is very quiet.

[536] And it's, it's, it's creeps up and it's not even nagging.

[537] It's like you hear it and you just, I don't want to hear it.

[538] hear it.

[539] I want to, it's all, it looks great over here.

[540] You know what I mean?

[541] It looks so aesthetically pleasing for me, do I mean, the car and the apartment and the parties and the women and it just, it was like the parties that were just like every day or the week, something going on.

[542] Music isn't really getting recorded now because the voice is just destroyed from like shouting in a club and doing a nonsense.

[543] So music is getting pushed to the side, all those fancy toys and the vibes starting to become more.

[544] important.

[545] You know what I mean?

[546] It's like that my balance of of actual supply and demand of music that got me there was way off.

[547] I was literally creating hardly anything.

[548] Is there shades of like you, you're going up on this trajectory when you were like a younger man 18, 19, etc. And then going into this place where you almost abandoned your like your essence and your roots.

[549] And then you that kind of culminates and you're making this covers album, which is almost it's quite, it's almost a bit of a metaphor because then you were really being someone else.

[550] Like doing cover albums is by definition you're covering other people's music and they're at star.

[551] And then almost this this period in Miami where you get into partying as it seems like a bit of a distraction maybe or whatever, trying to explore, trying to get some other pleasure from another type of life.

[552] And then kind of going back to your roots in a way where you, all of that, you'd tasted the shit.

[553] Yes.

[554] You'd had the Don Perry on.

[555] And that wasn't it.

[556] So now you go back and ask yourself, what is it?

[557] What is it?

[558] And then it seems like with TS5, of you created a new kind of expression of who Craig David is and who he always was.

[559] Totally.

[560] Or maybe who you had lost sight of over the years because of all these temptations and your own success.

[561] Ain't that the truth?

[562] When you start to realize that actually going back to the things that, and it's all back in childhood, this is the thing.

[563] When I tune in, it's like the decks and the DJ and the mixtapes.

[564] That was all I was trying to do when I was doing the TS5 house party.

[565] I just wanted to feel that again.

[566] Like I'm mixing now with my little pioneer DJ set up and I'm on the microphone being the host of the most desk And I want everyone to feel that feeling that I got into the whole thing for And if someone doesn't know what TS5 is Yeah can you explain just give an overview of what exactly what it is Yeah so TS5 is like um it's when I the performance now from the house party that it was Um is I'm able to close the DJ when I first started off as we've spoken about before and I was at that point then DJ fade.

[567] So I honed all my skills on using vinyl and Technics 1210s.

[568] The TS5 set is the name came from the apartment in Miami.

[569] And it's a show where I'm able to DJ and mix other people's records as much as drop my ones in and able to come out of my DJ booth and sing and do a performance in a way for me that is giving me all the feels I got from when I was a DJ, but also I can do the performance.

[570] and drop some gems in there at the same time.

[571] Like I can play a TLC, no scrubs, or I can play saying my name and then going to fill me in.

[572] I just love it.

[573] And taking that to pool parties that I did in, Abitha, I think I was trying to set the tone of like, this isn't a DJ set where I can get away with playing some songs, doing a few shots of tequila with my mates, and get paid for it and go home.

[574] I just can't.

[575] Like, I get that can work in certain, and I have no judgment is do your thing.

[576] but for me as a performer mixing the tunes is like it's so easy now like with vinyl is like that was a mission but like now so I can mix the tunes that's nothing but to come out of the booth perform do an MC thing and hit the marker back inside to get to the next song that for me I pride myself on it's given me a whole new lease of life for festival so that's really what TS5 is and it's become a phenomenal brand phenomenal brand for music putting and it's funny because it's such an it's quite rare that you have someone that has that kind of skill stack Of all those different pieces that can do that.

[577] I think that's probably why it's been such a hit is because you rarely see someone who can drop their own records, who can sing, who can perform, but then who can also DJ.

[578] It's like a really interesting new thing.

[579] Totally.

[580] I felt it in that got a little touch of it in the party when I was in my house parties.

[581] I mean, and I didn't even start to put, see, this is, it's beautiful when you look back at the puzzle pieces when the picture starts to become a little bit more clearer as you've put, okay, that puzzle, that piece there meant you needed that piece to happen for this one to happen.

[582] So when I was performing in my house, I wasn't actually performing in my own songs at all, because I just felt like, I don't want to start dropping my own songs in the middle of the thing.

[583] And then I have people come over and be like, bro, drop that film me in, drop rewind.

[584] The one girl came over and said, drop seven days.

[585] And I was like, nah, she goes, please, it's my favorite song.

[586] And I was like, maybe I might do a verse.

[587] Just one.

[588] And it started me, the idea of putting a couple of my songs in.

[589] And then we started to record the set.

[590] I'll start to record the set and put on SoundCloud so people could listen to it after because people were like, oh, where can I get?

[591] I'd love to listen to back to that set.

[592] Or we did sang a happy birthday to someone and it was a moment that they wanted to hear again.

[593] No one caught it.

[594] And I was like, well, let me capture this now.

[595] And that was actually where it flipped back into mixtape land that I then got, my manager took it into Kiss.

[596] Kiss originally were like, we can air this, put it out.

[597] as a show and then it went on to capital capital aired it as well and capital extra so all of a sudden it was like it's gone from a house party to a thing and then we did a couple early shows one uh two shows in hackney to see if this house party would translate into an actual thing and when i saw people it going off in the same way i thought wow this isn't just a miami thing you know it's not just in my house it's actually people connecting with it and since then i guess glastonbury was probably the one of the pinnacle of it because you're there and at front of a crowd who were there for a myriad of different artists and you're there performing a band set and then go into a DJ set and to see it going off I was like this is I had people from Miami who were early doors when we first did that party which was like nine of us just messing about having a couple shots with playing off iTunes to glastom really to glastom with it was crazy so it just it's always there the pieces are always there but time sometimes you need to have time and patience in this It's so interesting looking at your story as like an outsider and watching that journey of you being this like huge megastar, then the downside of the roller coasters, you describe it.

[598] And then watching you over the last like five, six, seven, eight years come back out with as almost like this completely new character, but with a proposition that's as as as what you used to do, a very, very different proposition.

[599] But you like, again, from my like not really paying attention to what's going on in the world because I'm not really that into pop culture.

[600] you know, I used to listen to you my Walkman, and then there was a gap.

[601] And then you're back in again, where everyone's talking about Craig David again, but for a completely different proposition, it appears to be a completely different proposition, that's not common or easy.

[602] The question I actually have for you is, because it's a roller coaster, your mind goes on the roller coaster as well.

[603] And this kind of brings me into the topic of mental health.

[604] Yeah.

[605] Be honest with me. What was the mental health journey throughout that whole period of time?

[606] Do you know, where I sit in, there was a long period of time, I guess that those words of man up or, or just just just just roll with it, just roll with it.

[607] Just man up is the most amount of nonsense that I've ever had because it's that in of itself is what's caused the crazy suicide rates that we see, especially in men, and the way in which it's spiraling our control, because it's like keep it inside, repress it, put it under the carpet, don't talk about it, that's what we do, that very alpha way.

[608] And thankfully, and this goes back to my parents, my grandma and my mom in particular, it was all about open and conversation and then speaking and have open conversation and be able to get it out and have a convoy.

[609] And I think that there was periods where I just, I rode through it.

[610] And I think Miami was kind of just was a break from a lot of things and me being out there and being a different climate, a different culture, enjoying those things.

[611] But that still wasn't fulfilling what I was really looking for.

[612] What I really wanted was connection and relationship in a way that I experienced almost in those kind of early doors before the first album and when it hit.

[613] So the roller coaster ride is you find character in your lows.

[614] 100%.

[615] You ask the questions, the real question, do you really want to do this?

[616] Are you really about this?

[617] And I am a musician through and through.

[618] And I love it, but the, the, the, the, the, the, depression is real.

[619] Mental health in, in the, in the multitude, a myriad of different ways that that can come about is real.

[620] And it's the, and it's something that you can only, half the battle I've always, so I've spoken about, like, is talking to, it's been able to express that to someone you can confide in.

[621] And even if there's not something you can confide it in, in, a phone line that you can pick up and just speak to something you don't know maybe in some ways that can be even better you can just go out of my chest and they're giving you they're hearing you they see you but that's only half the battle the rest is then a journey of they call it in more spiritual circles of dark night of the soul of going through into a place where you're going to uncover everything that was put under that carpet having to bring it to the light and having to bring it up and work through it to find a place where you pull the carpet up and all the dust goes up everywhere.

[622] And then you start to see where it lands.

[623] You start saying, okay, this was a story that I was telling myself.

[624] The things I was defining myself of myself were through how I looked and the approval of others.

[625] This was authority figures feeling like they had something over me. The power I had when I was the entrepreneur selling chocolates and making the songs, that's really you, who I've always been.

[626] But I had abandoned, you used that earlier, abandon yourself.

[627] When that starts to happen, it could aspire.

[628] allowed control and I had injuries and physical injuries through all the training and stuff that I did as well that spiraled me into different depths of depression where I was just like whoa I've never experienced this when things happen that you've never they're cumulatively build up but then there's something that breaks it just snaps it and at that point it just feels like whoa and you're trying to you're on free fall that's the feeling I feel with depression I've experienced that I know how it is and I haven't really been as vocal, I guess, as today about like that.

[629] And I feel it's necessary because it's, I don't want to be the one who's telling the story.

[630] I want to be so authentic and I want to open up.

[631] Like you said, you spoke about things that you needed to get off your chest and let people know the other side of all this.

[632] Because in that is where all the beauty and empathy really is and people can connect and they say, oh, what?

[633] So you went through that.

[634] Ah.

[635] So it isn't this thing that only me. And all of a sudden, we're all connected and I'm thinking, yes.

[636] And then I'm inspired by people who kind of wear the heart on their sleeves now.

[637] So, yeah, I feel like it was a culmination of a lot of those things building up to being in the wrong place, being away from my family, missing, be able to just make music in the way I did, coming back to the UK.

[638] And then as soon as I did that, and I felt my first huge hug when I walked in and saw big nasty, corruptor femme, Mr. Jam, Stormzy was in the building, Shola Ammer.

[639] And I did this one extra performance, which was really, I was going to rock up and vibe fill me in.

[640] And I ended up singing it over, Where Are You Now, the Justin Bieber Diplow, Scrillix instrumental.

[641] There was this moment of love, I felt.

[642] Big Nasty giving me a hug first when I came in wearing his heart in sleep.

[643] Booty Man's my tune.

[644] Oh my God, Craig.

[645] Booty Man is my song.

[646] And I'm like, whoa.

[647] Like really wearing his heart in sleep.

[648] And then sing this song, sing Fill Me In as a remix vibe.

[649] over this instrumental, and it went so viral that I'm looking on my phone, I'm seeing Justin Bieber like saying, like, whoa, that's amazing.

[650] That you need to check at 45 minutes in at the show.

[651] Then I'm seeing Skrillix on my timeline.

[652] I'm seeing Diplo on the timeline.

[653] I'm just thinking something's happened here.

[654] But it was more than just, it needed me to play my part and get back home and go through that Miami phase of what that was all about.

[655] I find that really interesting But that's the fit So was that that Miami phase The first phase in your life Where you encountered what you believe to be like Depressive symptoms Where you felt fell into a depression In the in the latter stages Of Miami Yeah because I got I got injured out there My back went like in my lower back And I never felt a pain like that in my life Like I felt aches and pains Of training incidents and different things I've had like anyone who's had like a blowout in the back But this one in particular was just like it was a feeling that just wouldn't give up so I was my movement patterns was went from you know you're 100 % you're doing the last kind of leg leg press and all these it's deadlifts and I've got respect for deadlift amazing move but when you're if your back goes on one of those I promise you will there's a feeling that you have which is like putting your hands in like 240 volts in the wall that it's just it's different it's like it's it's a a nerve pain which is not like an ache or like oh it feels a bit sore like you've got doms from doing too many kind of like some glute work so when it went I was like I never felt anything quite like this and it made me have to check myself in a whole different way for the fact that every movement I did felt like I was getting that same spasm so it wasn't just like one spasm it wasn't like okay we've locked up we're good at that point you know where you're at I've had those before we all had I think in our lives we'll have a sporadic moment where you have a thing This was now, it's happening now, it's happening now, it's happening now.

[656] Like it was continuous nerve spazzing.

[657] I was like, it was a spiral for me. It was, it was a point where I had dark thoughts.

[658] I was just like, I can't live my life like this.

[659] So I understood really at that point the first time depression hit me and I couldn't reframe it as being positive.

[660] I couldn't say this has put a positive spin on it.

[661] There was nothing.

[662] So I had the mental thing.

[663] So I was getting, I kind of signed up for a good, to be someone you have to experience certain things to be able to speak on it and I get that now so it's like okay if you come here to to on mission to do this you're going to have to feel pain physically you're going to have to feel heartbreak you're going to have to feel anxiety and abandonment of your body you're you're going to have to feel all these things and then I hope that you get to a point where you get the memo which I've now fully understood the memo I don't need to be doing deadless and I don't need to be training like the way I trained before.

[664] I can stay healthy and more importantly what people enjoyed from me was music that it never had changed and I realized that from when I came back to London it was like people just want to hear music and they were cool they were just happy and this version of me and I love all the other versions because they all played a part this isn't a judgment thing like oh yeah well we always tend to be like yeah and an album comes out you're like yeah it's no good anymore this is the one no they all played a part to me sitting here today with you and being able to break down things and unpack things and as a as a as a as a man now to be open enough to say I know what depression feels like I speak differently on things now and the more I can open up and speak on the pain that I felt and that back thing ran for years it was like a couple years three years I was like and even to I mean to the day I'll put my hands like I'm still working out like do we do surgery do we not do we like I'm it's it's dialed down incredibly but it was a defining moment it's pivotal to me and it just was like whoa and like I said depression you'll have dark thoughts dark thoughts you'll start having thoughts so you're like if this pain can continuously goes on like this then I can't it's it sounds crazy for me even saying it because I'm like it was the nicest guy and you're so positive and you like How could it?

[665] But I was like, I just can't live like that.

[666] I can't live like this.

[667] So you start not think about ways that you would say, take your life for to dip out.

[668] But you start having thoughts of something has to happen.

[669] Like this pain is intolerable.

[670] I can't even style it out.

[671] There's nothing for it.

[672] And I think that that when it started to dial down and we've done it from injections and all different kind of things conservatively and strengthening the the multifidus and the paraspinals and the glutes.

[673] I know my body so well now, it got me back into my body, more importantly, I start to understand the mechanics of how my body works.

[674] I never listen to things.

[675] You know, you get a little ache and a pain or you get a little thing, tell, tell sign that 10 years ago, you got a blow out, and then it blows out again, and you didn't listen, you keep going.

[676] All that does, it just amps up the sound until you get the one, you got the memo now, okay, cool.

[677] Now you've got the memory.

[678] That's how the universe works.

[679] So I'm really in tune with my body.

[680] When it starts telling me stuff, I'm like, I need to check for this early because I don't want that five -year thing and the thing's going to let me know the hard way.

[681] Amen.

[682] It's dialed down, thank God, but all part of the plan because it's put me in a place where I can physically go out there and do my shows like I love.

[683] I can go out there and perform like I love.

[684] I don't need to be putting the extra working in a gym to satisfy anything that's, I can go swimming, I can move my body.

[685] And I can, the things I can dial it up and we can get whatever, you what we'll be looking for but who is it for anyone anymore i don't need that but you are back you back in the UK now back to the UK back in the UK um and you said this you said this quote you said to a lot of people i'm at my destination i've arrived i'm back but no i'm still on my journey and i'm not taking my foot off the gas now that that phrase foot on the gas right it kind of sounds it has hints of a former Craig yeah when you even said foot of the gas year.

[686] I don't know what day I was saying that or what I was feeling.

[687] Yeah.

[688] When you said it to me then, I knew exactly as you were going to say, like, what's this foot on the gas thing?

[689] Because that would suggest that you're headstrong, run into it.

[690] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[691] I get the sentiment, but then also the phrase, the terminology is a little bit troubling, right?

[692] Yeah, yeah.

[693] It's like we're not, didn't take the foot off the gas.

[694] Just relax.

[695] For the, for the, for the, save your petrol.

[696] Just calm myself stay sometimes staying still weirdly enough it's actually the one i recognize when i stayed still and the world moves it's like wow pandemic yeah that i've got to say had for for everything and the pain it caused and the people who lost their lives and families that were that were suffering so deeply and still are um when you look at just how it was a pause on the whole world and it just had people recognizing that one they had to relinquish control because it got to a point, well, I can't control this.

[697] So, okay, break open the Monopoly board, let's have a game then.

[698] All of a sudden, back into kid, back into the child again, the child was seen, play started to happen.

[699] And as much as like we all like to say that we need to be, the thing of doing, doing, doing, doing, but sometimes doing nothing, don't think that the world isn't working for you behind the scenes, yeah, when you're doing nothing, like having a good night's sleep, resting, trust me, for all the working out in the gym and all those kind of things, the rest was the actual thing where all the growth happened.

[700] So why would that be no different for the way that we are when, let me sleep on this.

[701] Let me slow down.

[702] And, man, it's a blessing to see someone as inspired and conscious as you putting it out there and allowing people like myself to come through, speak our truth, have people have a platform to speak and feel open and not feel like they're boxed in, having to kind of, you've got the media training here have to be there open out because that's what we need we've done that the old patriarchal system is crashing down it's not working anymore no one wants the divide and conquer and fight it ain't going to work we want love we want a heart -based relationship so that failed us right we tried that and it failed it failed deeply man yeah it really did and as we look forward you've got this album coming out which i'm really excited about called 22 and it's coming out on the 24th of june this year, talk to me, you know, throughout this, it's been 22 years as well since you, your first album, first album.

[703] So 22 years later, your album 22 comes out.

[704] What can I expect from this?

[705] What is the inspiration?

[706] What is the art, the creativity, the pain?

[707] What is the, what is, what is it?

[708] Okay, so we know born to do it was, was my baby, it broke out everything for me. It was the moment where everything I built up into that point.

[709] It was me getting the, the golden ticket.

[710] Let's say it's the golden ticket.

[711] We're entering into the chocolate factory now excited, but not the ending, right?

[712] Then I had to go through life a little and now I'm an landing at this place in my life where and during the pandemic gave me a lot of time to write a lot of songs got a studio at home so I was just, I was writing a lot of songs and I had no rush.

[713] It felt like how I was when I made my first album.

[714] If I wanted to do a verse today, cool.

[715] If not, I'm going to go downstairs to the kitchen and maybe I'll throw on a movie and maybe I'll come back up.

[716] I was grateful that I had that and privileged to be able to do that and to make home as productive as I wanted it to be or as relaxed as I want it to be.

[717] It feels like it has all the feels, it feels like has all the feels of my first album born to do it.

[718] I feel like the kid again.

[719] And I keep using the word feel because I think that's the most important.

[720] That's my, that's the only thing I can really gauge thing.

[721] How am I feeling?

[722] I've got a big sub -speaker in my, in my, in my home in, in London.

[723] Same thing.

[724] Literally, I literally just patterned the same thing with a couple of blue lights to make you look a little bit like it's a 2 .0 version of the same.

[725] But same big speaker.

[726] I can play it loud.

[727] I've had people come over and I've said you need to understand what bass is.

[728] Like really, because they think they know what bass you get a little sonar system and it's all cool, got a little couple subs.

[729] No, no, no, no, no. Listen to this and you get that, oh, what is just different.

[730] So I feel like I've got the R &B on there.

[731] I've got the garage on there I've got songs that I feel that we've a beautiful journey of where I'm at now I feel I'm speaking on things that it's coming from a place where I can still have the lingo and the languaging that doesn't set you off as being like oh you were like in the 2000s and no one says that anymore no one's saying tipsy in the club anymore no one's even really saying getting wavy anymore that's sort of like a couple years back so working with young artists working with young fresh songwriters, they'll give me languaging that allows me to get my messaging across but in a way that it can get the most broadest kind of reach.

[732] I just feel like we've, yeah, I don't want to gas it because it feels like every artist does that, right?

[733] Yeah, it's just, it feels really true to where I'm at right now and I've got, I listen to it and I'm excited to listen back to this album.

[734] And as I have done since really the following my intuition album, Since I came back, 2016 did that one, time is now and this one.

[735] But this one feels like with that, I'm a journeyman.

[736] That's the cover album cover is me on a journey.

[737] And I feel like that journeyman of just 22 years in now.

[738] And as I said to the Willy Wonka element, I feel like Charlie, who's now going through the test, he got a little caught up, which if you clock it, it was his grandpa who kind of got him to take that fizzy lifting drink and he started to go up into the thing.

[739] It wasn't really Charlie.

[740] He was calm.

[741] He was actually being the good one across it.

[742] It was his granddad that kind of going, right?

[743] To get to the end where the everlasting gobstopper part, where he has a choice to sell himself out, go sell it for 50 ,000 pounds, I think, to the competitor chocolate maker of Slugworth.

[744] Or does he go back and put it back on really Wonka's desk and do the right thing, knowing he's going away with nothing?

[745] I feel like I'm at that place where I'm in, I've created an album and I'm willing to, I'm willing to trade in all of the things that I, up into this point, this pretence that maybe I had behind a scene that people didn't win, I, I, there's always getting 80 % of me, but there was a 20 % and that's enough, or 10 % of me that's not, it's enough, it's like the, uh, the princess and the pee.

[746] Trust me, it's underneath there and it will keep getting you.

[747] It's like the thorn in the foot.

[748] It's like it doesn't have to be big.

[749] It's not some big drama, but it's getting you, right?

[750] I want to pull the thorn out.

[751] I want to find the pee.

[752] All right.

[753] I want to, I want to say, I want to sleep.

[754] my night in my mattress where I'm not feeling slightly uncomfortable because I know there's something underneath there's a needle in the haystack and I don't want I know it's in there yeah we've got to find it I'm at that stage where I'm dropping this album that I feel I've put the Velasin gobstopper back and I have no idea if Willie Wonka's going to turn around and say Charlie you did it I knew you did I had to test you I had to test you it's like what what the chocolate no more than the chocolate what is it got the whole chocolate factory you got the whole chocolate factory and his family can move it and everyone can be part of it.

[755] And that's how I'm feeling now.

[756] Everyone can be part of this.

[757] This is different now.

[758] So I'm excited, man. Oh, I'm excited.

[759] And do you know, I was excited before, but hearing your description of it and feeling your energy about where this is coming from.

[760] And it's coming from that place of like your intuition, your wisdom and your maturity.

[761] And over those 22 years, all of that unbelievable twisting journey that you've been on to create a record now, which sort of collects all of that wisdom.

[762] and all of that emotion and truth and pain and experience is really something to be excited about as a Craig David fan.

[763] So thank you for giving us another project.

[764] I've not heard it yet.

[765] They wouldn't let me hear it, but I can't wait.

[766] You know what?

[767] On the real, not just because I always feel like these moments have always more than, you've done your moment together, but I just feel there's a friendship building here anyway.

[768] So I'll hook out and I'll play you the album.

[769] We'll get some food and we'll vibe so it's calm you'll be well ahead of the game no you know from the minute you walked in the door I felt like I'd known you a long time and that's a credit to you because I meet a lot of people here right so sometimes people come in and maybe they're a little bit colder and like that you know there's a lot of things going on in their lives which I'm unaware of so I've got to have empathy for that but the minute you walked and through the door it was like you and it was like we'd known each other for a long time and that's that's honestly it's a credit to you so thank you thank you so much for your time we have a closing tradition on this podcast which is the previous guest writes the next guest a question.

[770] Nice.

[771] So I'm good.

[772] And I don't get to see what it is until I open the book.

[773] Nice.

[774] Nice.

[775] So the previous, and this is a very good one, in fact, very fitting.

[776] The previous guest wrote, if you could whisper in the ear of your 14 year old self, what would you whisper?

[777] That's good.

[778] That's good.

[779] That's good.

[780] Listen, Craig.

[781] I know it's might freak you out because you're hearing a voice in your ear right now.

[782] But trust me, I'm a little older version of you.

[783] And everything you're about to do, do right now is going to change your life in the most beautiful way and I want you just to enjoy every moment and know that there will be times that will be quite hard but know that I'm here know that I'm always there holding your hand along the way and I promise you that once you get through them the feeling you will have will be like the euphoria you are just about to experience in a couple years time so get ready and trust me the crowd are going to go off when they hear something soon.

[784] Okay.

[785] Love to you, my man. Oh.

[786] Amen.

[787] It was like a prayer.

[788] Thank you so much.

[789] Great goodness.

[790] Thank you.

[791] Honestly, it's a huge.

[792] And your vulnerability and openness, you don't know.

[793] You won't ever get to see the impact it has.

[794] I probably will.

[795] I'll get the comments and the messages.

[796] And you will as well.

[797] But the impact of you being, being self -aware enough and man enough to be vulnerable, I think is really something which I applaud you for because you just don't, you know, the impact you're going to have on a lot of young men, it's specific.

[798] specifically, is profound and, yeah, long -lasting.

[799] So thank you, brother.

[800] And feel is mutual, man. We're genuinely.

[801] I appreciate it.

[802] Thank you.