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

Craig David is a singer and DJ who has sold over 15 million records worldwide. With over 20 years in the music industry, he is one of the world’s best-known singers. But when he found his career falling away beneath him, Craig had to reinvent himself. Coming back with the incredibly popular TS5, Craig has risen to the top, fallen back and then rebuilt himself back to exactly where he left off. Nothing reveals the truth about yourself more than having it all and (most of it) being taken away. Craig had to dig deep and express what was true to himself, but first he had to find out what that meant. Follow Craig: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/craigdavid Twitter - https://twitter.com/craigdavid Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Making moves, yeah, on a dance floor.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  This means so, so much to me. Everything I touched was turning to gold. Everyone wanted a piece of me and...

• 0:11Steven Bartlett?

  How does an 18, 19-year-old deal with that?

• 0:14Speaker 00

  The height of success, when it is like, whoa, there's so much of the, the human part that's being unmet. I felt like I was starting to make music the tick boxes. When I started to do it, banding myself, and I started to do things that just weren't in alignment. It was a point where I had dark thoughts. So I was just like, I can't live my life like this. What people enjoyed from me was music. And I realized that from when I came back to London. I feel like the kid again. And trust me, the crowd are gonna go off when they hear something soon, okay?

• 0:45Steven Bartlett?

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

• 0:52Speaker 00

  Listen, Craig.

• 0:54Steven Bartlett?

  Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 1:09Steven Bartlett?

  Craig, I've got some lyrics that I wanted to recite to you, okay? 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. Always late, 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. 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. Cries himself to sleep and prays when he wakes up, things might have changed, but everything's the same. That's from your record, Johnny, from 2006.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  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 had a very, I had a beautiful upbringing. I, I enjoyed life, was a playful kid, I loved music. Um, but secondary school, all boys school, went to Belmore and Southampton. And for the majority of it, it was, 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're, you've got two pound on you, no, I haven't got two pound and push you up again, you've got two pound on you, like.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  And then it's not a case of like, have you got the money? It's like, let me check in your pockets, let me try and pull out the pockets. So as a less degree of the bullying, I was like, I was experiencing it physically in the corridors. 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? And it was only happening with one, one, one guy in, in one period in the school. So I understood what bullying was. I mean, that was, I was, I was felt helpless. I couldn't, he was two years older, stronger, could rough me up if he really wanted to. But then also I was seeing other people who were getting the, 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, they'll deal with it.

• 3:14Speaker 00

  This is the thing with bullying is that I agree with it, that it needs to be spoken to, someone you can confide in. But sometimes that kind of very rushing, you 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. Or it might be that they, they're, they're being bullied by someone from a different school even. So they'd be coming out to the school gates, thinking, okay, well, I'm on my way home. No, it's about to start when you get on the bus to go home. So the whole world is now outside of school, you, you, you finish at three P M. And now it's, it's beginning for you. So it was, I felt deeply that I needed to write on that.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Um, and like I said, my, my mom and dad had their own things going on, um, in their lives. And, and I spoke to my mom, I, I wrote the song when I was in Southampton. I got like a studio when I was down there and I played it to her because I wanted her to also know that, mum, you've always been supportive to me, like if, if I needed to speak to you, if I needed to say things, but. With bullying, there is an element where you wanna say something to the closest person in your life, be it your family, so your mother or your father. And I wanted to really portray that in the song properly. But I wanted to have that convo with my mum to let her know, I knew that you would have always, if I needed to speak to you, you would have been there. Cause I do say, you've got your problems of your own and I've tried to tell you so many times, you're not listening.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  And that is the case, a lot of the cases of bullying, that even family aren't listening. So who do you turn to? So, um, music has been that, that song in particular, I think that was Journey. My grandma had passed away at the same time. It was, uh, I just needed to get things off my chest that I felt like this is past a romantic love song. I need to help people in, in a way that wasn't trying to preach. She was just, let me tell stories, anecdotes, and I do it through music, so. And you were bullied for your weight back then as well, right? Yeah, the, well, the weight one was, it's funny, cause like, you like to tell the story differently when you're, you're in a slightly different place and position. You're, you're, you'll tell it like, nah, well, you know, it was, and I like, I like everything about this as well.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  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. Appreciate it. The, the being overweight thing, now I see it as actually in hindsight, it actually, it brought out so many things, wonderful things that I had to kind of, that I've been repressed for a long period of time. But at the time, the social standard was you need to look a certain way. The, the captain of the school football team tended to be the one that, that the girls were interested in. You were the, you were the slightly overweight one that they'd cry on your shoulder, tell you all your problems, have this real, you have a real empathic relationship.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  You'd be like, what, this is connection, this is real relationship, but we didn't wanna take it any further than that. Well, I, I, he's the one, look at the way he scored the goal, look at. So then you've already got this early imprint of what society expects of you. And then you start trying to conform to that. So there are periods where I'd look in, in, walking down the, the high street and I'd look in the, in the, in the glass, the reflection in the glass. And I'd just be looking like, just feeling sorry for yourself, feeling like the jeans ain't fitting quite right. And the jacket's not, and you're getting bigger sizes. And then you were just feeling like, I'm doing all the fit, I'm doing, I could run, I had some, I had some legs on me. You know, and probably boys that go, they'd be like, bro, you run, you run faster runner.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Which part do you run it, but I'll tell the story, I'm on the mic now. Um, as, so I could move, but I was just carrying a lot of weight. Um, but not unhealthy. I think there was a point that, that when it became unhealthy was when I realized that my weight had, I was like fifteen and I think my weight had, was starting to get to, I was fourteen and my weight had got to fourteen and a half stone. So I was starting to get over my age and weight. And I was, and I was like, maybe I need to slightly rein this in a little bit, health wise.

• 7:15Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm. I ask these questions because, and I always start with childhood on this podcast and I, I've, I've reflected on this over and over again and thought, maybe I should start somewhere else. But I know from my own experiences that my own like 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, the biggest drivers in my life. So when I sit here, I'm trying to find out why, you know, you got really into fitness and why you became, you know, who, who you became. 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? And, and those tend to be the pathway to people's, you know, people's greatness in a weird way.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  Hundred percent. Like it, it all, you're, you're, you've got this, this period where your heart's open. You wanna, you're experiencing life, you're a child, like you said, you're a child, you're a puppy, you like, you just, you don't know. And then all of a sudden you get that, oh, is that, oh, that, oh, I can't do that. Oh, that's the way to go. And you're, 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 still in adolescent years at that point, but when, maybe in your twenties, start to unpack things, just if you, if you're conscious, you're starting to recognize that this doesn't seem to line up with my truth. And then in your thirties, for me, it was like, whoa, I have to unpack all this stuff that was like the overweight thing. Because you're exactly right that it started then.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  And listen, I could, I could eat sweets like Cadbury's Boost Bars were getting eaten like crazy. I'd go to the, the, the newsagents 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, 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 eleven 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 fifty. But what am I a pound fifty? Okay, brother, wait till eleven then. You can go and get it for thirty five P, whatever it's. Oh boy, I've got a pound in there. Okay, cool, a pound. The leverage was incredible, right?

• 9:23Speaker 00

  So I always had an affiliation and one of my favorite movies is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So I think that set the tone anyway. I've got a bit of Augustus Gloop in 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?

• 9:37Speaker 00

  So yeah, so it's just, I'm, I've been unpacking it, a lot of those things and realizing that my, my health streak. That I got went on a sort of in, when I was in sort of Miami sort of time and even slightly before that. Was all to do with this childhood thing of, I've got to the six pack, the captain of the school football team. It's funny how like those things like, you're like, whoa. And it wasn't even, and then the crazy thing with it is that when I got into the music, when I start rewinds started blowing up, it was, people just wanted to hear me sing.

• 10:06Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  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 gonna fall out. So if that's, there's a saving grace for everyone. Don't worry about the fat content and your fat percent. There's a six pack underneath everyone. So walk out in the street and feel confident with that.

• 10:24Steven Bartlett?

  That's great. Let's start telling people that. Um, you, you talked in those lyrics, but then also then you talked about your parents. And you said there was, I, I know, again, that's another dynamic because those are the, for most people, the most formative figures in their life. What was the relationship with your parents? And you said they had things going on that, that were kind of. It it sounded like distracting them from the things that were going on in your school life.

• 10:47Speaker 00

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

• 10:53Speaker 00

  But the beautiful thing is that my my dad always would come pick me up on the weekends on a Sunday. And we'd either be going to like Polton's Park, like go karting, or I'd be helping him fix a kitchen. Which I've got, I always say to my dad, like, dad, like, why does someone have to fix a kitchen? Like, can we, like, I just remember the tools and the, it was dry and dusted, I think. But I loved those times with my dad, yeah, he really made an effort in our drives in his car, playing reggae music. He heavily influenced everything that I was going through. And for my mum, it was like, she was working nine to five. So my grandma and my mother were pretty much raising me. My grandma would come pick me up from school when my mum was at work.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  So I had a lot of feminine energy in my life, which I'm really grateful for. Cause it set the tone for how I wrote a lot of my songs, even Seven Days. I mean, I'm saying Making Love, a seventeen years old writing a song, who's saying Making Love?

• 11:49Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  On Wednesday. I mean, you listen to the songs now, they're not using that kind of language. But it was that, I got, there's a respect I had for my, for my, for my mother, for my grandmother. And the fact that even my dad, I didn't want him, I don't cussing out on record, my dad would just be like, yeah, we need to like, speak about this. So I just, I felt I got a really good upbringing, but at the same time, I didn't have a great model of family life at home. 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 your grandma. And then my dad was just like, always had my back and I've got you, but I've never, I've never seen them together. So I think, again, looking at childhood imprints and patterns is how they affect you later on.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Relationship with with women was something I've always been really close to. But I also had never had a model of how do you, how do you stay together with like the, 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 where you've got to be conscious enough to actually ask that question. And it tends to knock on the door and intuition is always there sort of saying, we can have this convo if you want. Like we can, I'll, 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.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  But there's also what I've seen now, and I feel, I feel very, I feel open enough to be apologetic for relationships that I, I didn't, I, my heart was closed or from the basis that not only from the family modeling, but also your first break, heartbreak. So for me, it was like I, my heart was so open and I had that first heartbreak. And it just went from a kid who was had his heart open and thought this is it and you're into me and it's gonna. And then all of a sudden it just crashed and I was like, whoa, that feeling. And I'd, I'd never felt anything like that before where I was like, I, I didn't know who to turn to.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  It was like, I felt that after, after early childhood sweetheart breakup, my, my heart had kind of closed down and I, and I feel sorry for the, the, the girls and, and women in the last days of my life who've tried to open my heart up. And that's all they were trying to do. There's, there's, there was things that went a bit toxic and, and went. But I, I have to own those situations. A lot of guys is like, yeah, well, she's, the, the girl was like this or she was crazy. No, no, no, no, forget all of that. 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 a, there's an energy exchange between two people. And you can play it off. It's like, no, but we had an unwritten agreement where it was like no strings attached.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  And you can play that game as much as you want. Get enough karma, you'll start to see that there'll be some 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 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 arms length and it just doesn't work like that.

• 15:08Steven Bartlett?

  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?

• 15:18Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 15:18Steven Bartlett?

  For better, for worse. And then that first heartbreak, what were the two stories, those two incidents? Told you about relationships.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  So having no modeling of what real relationship is. It it showed me early from from mum and dad, as much as I love them with all of my heart, that being single is the best way to get through life. Just stay single because I never saw my mother with another partner. I never really saw my dad with another partner. And I have sisters and brothers, but I never, I'd, I'd, but I'd, I'd never, and of of my dad's other relationships that he had.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  And I love them equally, but it's just, I never had any clear reason to say that relationship works. And then it reinforces, so the story adds on later on in your life. You start to see how people are with each other who are in relationships and you get friends who are in relationships and they're maybe cheating on their partner. Or you're seeing how there's been scenarios where a girl says she's, she's in a relationship. And thankfully, it hasn't been husband or, but there've been relationships. I'm not going to be that the guy say I've never met a girl who's in something. And I tell you a story that I was breaking up, we're not really in it, but you're, you're starting, it's reinforcing the same thing of, well, stay single then.

• 16:30Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Don't get involved in all this because you, your heart will be protected and life is good and we can keep at arms length. Then link that into the, the first breakup, first heartbreak, heart was open. Gave everything, relationship, I'm all in, like, I'm gonna, as a child, I was like, okay. It's hard psychologically, you, you, 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, oh, I'm falling, I'm 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 a week, week and a half, yeah? The break, yeah? It wasn't, it was, this, we're talking early, early days, but when your heart is fully open.

• 17:07Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  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 which all goes hand in 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, why did, there's moments where I'm looking back thinking, when I was writing that song, what was I feeling? I was feeling the same heartbreak that I had, or the same zero understanding of what relationship is. And then now I see it's all about relationship. It's all about opening your heart up again, and 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.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  And you met someone who met you at a place to help you through that, which is even better when you meet someone who's conscious and gets it and says, Yeah. I've got you, baby steps if we need to, but I'm with you, yeah. I'm at that place now where I'm like, ah. Do you think your heart's open? My heart's open, man. It's open in a way that I'm I'm down if it if something tried to tried to close it down. I'm open as much as I was when I first had my heart open. And I 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 the truth of the matter. And where are you relationship wise? Single at the moment. Single.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  Which is, again, you have, especially as as a guy, and I can only really kind of speak on my experiences and we we tend to, our actions have to line up with the way that we're we're feeling. And and I felt that there was times when I was talking in good 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 where you 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 to ten years ago for me, that that. The objectifying of women, that 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 in?

• 19:10Speaker 00

  And that's all part of the same thing that was happening as a as a kid. That it was, it was very dreamy but without the relationship. And now it's flipped. I I look for a relationship in in in, I want to have a situation where I can connect with you. Now, regardless of the look, if we're not going to a place where we can go there, we can laugh. Laugh is one of the biggest values of of any relationship. If someone makes me laugh, cry uncontrollably, you've always got half of my heart already, yeah, because that's going to save you when the relationship has its ups and downs. So the the down is when you need someone who can bring that, because trust me, the romantic phase, as as we all know, that's intoxicating. Yeah, when you wake up after the hangover and it's real, you're still having the same feeling and love starts then.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  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.

• 20:00Steven Bartlett?

  Have you had a long term relationship?

• 20:05Speaker 00

  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

• 20:12Steven Bartlett?

  Same as me.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  And and even then, like, I don't feel like I opened my heart. I I really felt that the guy was really trying to get me to to break down some walls and I I go on record that as as toxic as things can go, with a little bit of time and separation, you look at it, book it back and you say, thank you because you taught me so much about how I was moving and how it 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.

• 20:39Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the other things, talking about things that kind of invalidated us when we were 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, I'm going to say, it's not the estate that I would wish to have lived on. I don't want to criticize, you know, an area, but it's not, it it didn't look, I saw like a grey apartment apartment block. And it it looked like a

• 21:03Speaker 00

  Council estate.

• 21:04Steven Bartlett?

  It was a council estate, yeah. And you, the the quote you said was you were a kid looking out of your bedroom window at the estate car park imagining Jacuzzis.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  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 filming in and I was like, yeah, I was like jumped in the jacuzzi. I was thinking, what jacuzzi was I actually jumping in because last time I checked you were in a two bedroom flat with your mum. Yeah. So the only jacuzzi you were jumping in was your bath. So that's, let's put that on record and you were in a four by four. Yeah. Okay, cool. So which driving licence did you have at that point? Because you were only like fifteen, sixteen when you were writing.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  It was aspirations. Aspirations. But looking out of that window overlooking that car park, what my grandmother brought to, to the table in terms of like, I mean, the love that my mum, just my family, I'm just very grateful for that upbringing. But my grandma, as grandmas do, and I make sure you, you get the right food in you, make sure you wear the jacket, you know what I mean? Because it's going to get cold, it's going to rain later on and you're like, grandma. And then it rains. They just have this wisdom. Yeah. But she had a beautiful little garden in the house that she lived and it was like five minutes away from where I lived. And I was just like, that for me was, was enough as an inspiration to say, if I can have a house with a garden in Southampton, we're good here.

• 22:21Speaker 00

  I mean, little did I know that, 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 from my grandma and I looked at the car park and it was like, it, it kept me on my, 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. I was like, I was already doing my market stall selling of chocolates at school, already had that going on. I was already doing mixtapes.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  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 speak, another pair of speakers or another mini disc player to record on. Then I was getting a printer so I could print my own covers. Then 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. I literally had my whole little factory of making tunes, trying to have a little business going on. So I could make ends meet in my own 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. Like, I think she was going deeply into overdrafts, just to make my my life feel comfortable. You've got the Sega Mega Drive, right? With Sonic the Hedgehog and those games. Yeah, so

• 23:41Speaker 00

  brought my memories for a second there. Yeah, you got the, but when I think back, wherever my money was getting, wherever mum was getting this money from, like, she was deeply in debt. So when you look back, you say, mum, the love I have for you, like nine to five, and making me feel like I was getting everything that any other kid was getting, you know what I mean? But, and my dad, you know what I mean? Like, he, he supported, he would, he would never, no one could cross me. No one, no one could do anything bad to my dad, had 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, dad's not there to do the things. So how, where's that part? So you're having to understand, I've got so much feminine energy in me in that part, but I need the, speaking your truth, action now. So it's

• 24:26Steven Bartlett?

  The yang.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  The yang, my man. The yang.

• 24:29Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  The yang.

• 24:30Steven Bartlett?

  So you talk about music there, and one of the things that was really remarkable, reading through your stories, how early music came into your world, and how early you started, like, selling mixtapes. And I sat here with, I've sat here with many musicians, and it tends, tended to happen a little bit later in life. Even Diplo sat here last week, and for Diplo, it was, I don't know, he was twenty five or something before he really started going in music. But you were, you were young. I know your dad had an influence in that, because he was very into reggae.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:55Steven Bartlett?

  And he was in a reggae band, right?

• 24:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 24:56Steven Bartlett?

  But where did music show up in your life? And then, and how did that obsession kind of like take hold?

• 25:02Speaker 00

  Um, I mean, it was, like I said, when I, earlier on, I said, like, you do a little high five when you come into the world. I feel that, and you lose sort of the cognitive understanding as to what's going on, and why we're here, and then, but there's something intuitively that's pulling you in certain directions. And as a child, you very much honour that. You just go in the direction. So I was always intrigued by the little hi-fi setup my mum had in the, 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 my dad's reggae group, which more recently, there's a mural now in Southampton, they put on, on Ogilvy Road. Huge moral that says about Ebony Rockers and I'm thinking, wow, I'm so proud of my dad.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  I was like, yes, dad, because you are a musician in your heart, bass guitar player. The, the, the group were talking about social issues that were going on in the seventies, eighties. And being able to put that on record and talk about injustices that were going on in their lives in Southampton. And have it on record, but now you're getting recognized for that. Amen. 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, well, my dad's like, early though. I'm talking like five, six years old looking like, well, 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.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Uh, my first ever seven inch I ever bought was, uh, it was Human Nature. Oh, really? With Michael Jackson? Yeah, because it was on a seven inch. It was in a, there was a small little box next to the twelve inch. It's the first one I bought. That's why, let me tell it right. It was the first one I bought, first song I ever bought. So that's why, and I mean, look at the lyric of the song. I mean, it couldn't be any more perfect as a, as a song of like, being conscious and understanding the world. So, yeah, so I had a, and there was, there was the bit of Donny Osmond in there. Cause my mom was a big fan of the Osmonds, which was a big group back in the day. Mixed with the Stevies and the Michaels and, and, and then also having my dad's reggae, deep reggae from Bearis Hammond to Sanchez.

• 27:17Speaker 00

  Terra Fabulous, Budger Banton, Beanie Man, Bounty, like early, like I'm a sound man at heart. I think when I'm in the studio, people are like, you literally are Budger Banton, but no one's actually see, like hearing you do this yet. Because I go into this reggae, Killamangaro, David Roddigan, uh, Black Cat sound system in me. So when I hear See Carnival, I'm just like, it's me sitting up, posted up with a little bit of rice and chicken. A little Budweiser by a speaker and I'm good. So, yeah, man, that music started off early and then I just, I just felt like it just was gravitating towards it. When was the first time you made music in any kind of context? First time I made music was.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  My dad got me a Hi-Fi system called Studio One Hundred. 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 One Hundred. Like, whoa, what am I supposed to do with this? I have no idea. So it had loads of faders, loads of microphones with different coloured foam capsules on the top. It looked the business with a record deck on top, two twin cassette decks and lots of switches. 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 invested and when you're a kid, you learn all the things, you know all the. So I started to record, I would have said I was eleven, eleven, twelve years old when that came through.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  And you'd put a TDK cassette tape. There was a D ninety was like the basic one, or if you were feeling kind of saucy with it, you have like a chrome or a metal. I know the two pound forty nine, those ones, but if you went for the normal D nine, it was like a little sixty nine B one. I buy two of them, you record into one tape. So I put the first lead line of something. And 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. 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 Jodeci freaking you. Or Boys to Men, why does it sound like you literally just changed like the road to street on end of the road?

• 29:27Speaker 00

  You have to do a bit more than that, which I kind of, you will learn quickly if you don't get the memo, yeah? But yeah, so I started to bounce the vocals down. 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 let that play and you record on top, so you were dubbing on top of your vocal. The quality was diminishing every time you did that, yeah, because this is old school stuff. But I was starting to finish a song and I was feeling very, very proud of myself that I could actually write a song. How old? I would have been like, yeah, like eleven, twelve years old.

• 30:00Steven Bartlett?

  Eleven, twelve years old.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  Hmm. But yeah, that kind of led into a world very nourished with R and B, reggae, but also the the pop soul element. Terrence Derby was the first show I ever went to at the Guildhall in Southampton. It blew my mind. I saw this guy, I was front row, I just saw him like, he was moving like Prince with Marvin Gaye, but he had the voice like a Stevie Wonder with Michael Jackson. The Hardline According To Album was like, it was like seven, eight million albums. It was a huge record for him with the breakout song Sign Your Name Across My Heart. Again, look at the the messages. Sign your name across my heart. Yeah. I'm like, finally, we're getting the message now. I need to let someone sign it fully. You

• 30:42Speaker 00

  know what I mean? And capitals hold that. But changed my life. I was like, if I can, I'd love to do what that guy does.

• 30:49Steven Bartlett?

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

• 30:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 31:00Steven Bartlett?

  Was that, would you consider that to be your first kind of like break opportunity?

• 31:04Speaker 00

  You know what? It's like, it gave me, it gave me the first taste of of reinforcing that I could actually do this. Like, I thought it was a break, like I was gonna, we've done it here.

• 31:17Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  I've written the song, I'm Ready. It's on the back of, it's on the B side of Wonderful Tonight, their Clapton cover, which was the lead single. I'm Telling Everyone, it went to number two in the charts. I'm Telling All My Friends, that's because of, obviously, my song, I'm Ready, not the classic Wonderful Tonight that they've covered, right? But I thought it was off the back of me. 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 come true. But I didn't, off the back of it was like, okay, I was in the shops for a few weeks. But nothing, it went quiet after that.

• 31:49Steven Bartlett?

  How old were you when you won that songwriting competition for the boy band Damage?

• 31:53Speaker 00

  I would have said I was fourteen around that.

• 31:56Steven Bartlett?

  So you start messing around with music at about eleven ish, you said, right? And then at fourteen, you win the songwriting competition for the boy band Damage.

• 32:06Steven Bartlett?

  And that's what, like, three years of just continuing to mess around and develop and practise and just play around with music, right? Between that time?

• 32:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it was, it was, and again, the support of my mum and dad in ways that now I'm just like so thankful for. Bringing that studio, one hundred piece of equipment that for me to record. You know, my first record deck, all those things now, I was the kid looking through the music store like, oh, I wish I could have that. Wish I could have that one, if I could get that one equalizer, it would, I could mix it. I was just that nerdy with it. And they would always somehow have a ten pound and a twenty pound ready for me to help me out. And I had my, my chocolate thing going also.

• 32:43Steven Bartlett?

  There's something really interesting about you saying nerdy with it because the guests that I've 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 ten years before they blew up or whatever. They were just like really nerdy with music. There wasn't really an intention of being the greatest or getting the number one albums. They were just like obsessed, even Ret 32, when he sat here, it 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, or at least the, the, the starting point doesn't appear to be this obsession with becoming a superstar.

• 33:25Steven Bartlett?

  It's this kind of nerdy fascination because you spent three years between eleven and fourteen, just messing around with cassettes on some piece of hardware that your dad bought you.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course, it, it, it did feel that my obsession with music, like when I, when I look back, and it's, it's different now. Cause I have this, 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 started collecting vinyl. Like I knew every producer, I knew where the snare was on this track was taken from a Changing Faces song over there. And this record over here uses the kick drum 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.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  I'd be like, like the other DJs would say, I got to London, get records, bring them back. Those days DJs were the go to. Like it wasn't like you go on New Music Friday and you get a thousand songs to kind of to look through. It was like if a 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 are you gonna go? You can't copy this unless you've got a lathe and you're gonna start to print acetates in your house. So you had to wait. So I, when you went out to London, especially because this was the hub for where everything was being made and printed out. I'd come back sometimes from Southampton with some record. DJs all know, where you

• 34:59Speaker 00

  get that, Craig? Where you get that? I say, yeah, you know, I'll swap you a Faith Evans, I just can't, and a Jade for the tune that you got. And I said, hmm, maybe give me a little 10 pound extra for that. You could, you could, it was all vibes, man. It was such a fun time because things were slower. And I love it now, but it's just, there's a lot to get into. There's a lot of music being released just to, to keep up with the flex of it.

• 35:25Steven Bartlett?

  Between 14 and 18 then, what happens then for you?

• 35:29Speaker 00

  I'd gone from the songwriting competition, a moment where it was like, okay, this is the, this is the, this is the thing. But then it continued on where, okay, this wasn't necessarily at the big breakthrough. Heavily into, into collecting records. I started to DJ early on. I was MC 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 be a chaperone for me, really. He knew my dad. And

• 35:59Speaker 00

  He was ten years older than me and I at fourteen, I looked a little older as well. So I can kind of get, I could style it to get into clubs with him. And he'd let me be his M C. So I'd be called M C Fade. And I was just like, you know, I mean, the Fade was Chris and I just thought that was the.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  And then he'd give me like a, he'd give me a little slot uh to, to play maybe a little fifteen minutes at the end of his DJ set. So in Southampton, he was playing most of the, the kind of big clubs there. And he introduced me to the Cajun Zoo in Bournemouth. We do a couple of shows in, in Portsmouth. So I was like his, I was his M C and also his box boy as well. Cause trust me, the back was getting like smashed, picking up those heavy boxes. Yeah, it's different when you're wearing the chain with the M P three on it. It's different when you're picking up those boxes, right? Your, your squat game's got to be really on point, your glutes will be, will be fired up. But I'd always do this thing with him where I'd be like. Flash, I feel, I feel, I see that dial over there. I was always trying to find like a girl who had his eyes on. He'd be, he'd be watching all through the night.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  I'd be like, I think she, she keeps looking at you, man. You need to go, you need to go and speak to her. He goes, yeah, but I just don't worry, I got you. I'll, let me, you go and speak to her, man, cause she's gonna, she's gonna go and it's all gonna, okay, cool. Handle the fort, I'll handle the fort, don't you worry. So I'd 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, for the move. She blows him out completely because you were never looking at him at all for the whole thing, right? I've got a thirty minute DJ setting and then he's come back like crazy. It's like she didn't even, I goes, I know she was looking at you all the time, I'm not sure. You've got to find your ways, yeah, but I learned from between that fourteen to, to, to really to sixteen. Was a period of DJing intensely then. I started to go off and do my own DJing sets with M C Alister.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  Who was part of the Artful Dodger, who goes and does M C sets now. And then it was kind of, it was moving, I was at college, I'd gone from secondary school now, I was at college, a city college. I was doing an M V Q level two in electronics. It was like the closest thing I could get to music because there wasn't like uh production uh courses that they do now, which would have been great. 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? And I'm like, you know, I just want to know how Timberland makes that. Or Rodney Jackins makes the, the vocal sound so good, could someone show me that? Then there wasn't a course, so I thought, let me do electronics because at least that gets me closer to circuit boards. Richer Sounds was around the corner.

• 38:25Speaker 00

  I had some wicked equipment in there. I thought even if I got a job working there would be great. I'd be near deck, I'd be near twin tape cassette decks, maybe I can get a little discount. So that was my road. I was going down DJing, emceeing there. Never thought it would necessarily mean meeting Mark Hill and Pete Devere from the Artful Dodger, which is where it really then transcended. Tell me about that. So in one club, it was called Old Orientals, ten minutes around the corner from where I was living with my mum. It was DJing downstairs, R and B hip hop set. Upstairs was house and garage night. Mark Hill and Pete Devere, who are the original Artful Dodger, were playing upstairs.

• 39:09Speaker 00

  Now, this is early doors for garage music, so you're hearing like It's a London Thing was playing, Scott Garcia, which was like a classic garage tune from them days. And even like the Lessons in Love was coming through Robbie Craig and there were just tunes playing. 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 and B stuff now. It fell over this skippy, what do you call it? I don't know what two step was. It was like, is it speed garage? It was weird, like some eclectic thing that's not house, but it feels UK. And then all of a sudden we got into a conversation and I was talking about all these songs that I'd been recording at home,

• 39:51Speaker 00

  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 then literally, 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 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 writes songs you can sing. And I was like, oh, this is a perfect marriage. And he says, I've got a studio, it's like five minutes from here at a place called Ocean Village. And I was like, you can't even make this up. Like it was the like my, my flat, the, the old Orientals place that we met, the studio was literally within a 10 minute walk.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  It was like all perfectly planned. And then from that, the next thing I did was record a song called, What You're Gonna Do, which was the first release for Marvel 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 I'd made it at that point. I was on 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 Derby Street and Soho Records there and Brixton. We've got some, I was like, and something started to build, my man. 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 saying, I'm hearing your tune getting played on pirate radio stations, you know?

• 41:18Speaker 00

  I'm like, what? I'm hearing like it's going off, drop the funk, drop the bass, hit it. And I'm like, what?

• 41:25Speaker 00

  And I like, but then random people saying, I was coming back from London. It's getting played. Like I went to a club, it went off. The DJ spanned it like four times, back to back. Something was bubbling. 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. They'd done a licensing deal for that song. They said, do you want to come up to London and start doing some, some PAs and performances for this song? And so I'd love to. So I'd call up my mate Clinton in his yellow Fiesta. I remember clearly, got a Jamaican flag in the back. Yeah. Just like he had it proudly there. He had like the, the sub speaker in the boot going crazy. The thing was tuned up like he was coming going to Not Neil Carnival. Yeah. The sound system was way more than the car, right?

• 42:07Speaker 00

  It sounded crisp. So we're up there, I'd slip him like 50 pounds to, to get me up there, get me back. And literally I'd go up, I was getting like two, 250, 300 pound for, for a PA, which was good money. I'm like, wow, this is real money now from selling chocolates to this kind of money. I can buy this record. I can buy that. And I'd go to the Colosseum in Vauxhall, um, The End. Um, and I started Twice As Nice was the, the big, big name at the time. And I'd go out there and sing What You're Gonna Do. And I'd go on stage and I was this young 15 year old kid. I was 16 at the time. Walked out. And the DJ, even more like, any DJ could play. Cause the Artful Dodger, we had this sort of agreement that if Artful Dodger were with me,

• 42:50Speaker 00

  performing, we're doing a set together, we'd have 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 just had a nice little agreement going on. So I'd go up there and the DJ would, you say, you ready, ready? I'd go, yeah, I'm ready, ready. And he'd be like, drop the funk, drop the bass. Hit, and that's for the first time walking out, seeing it go off. I was just like, this is mad. And before I even got to sing, the guy, they're spinning it up and everyone's going, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow. Which is where, led to Bo Siletta with Rewind. Why I was saying that in the song, it's like, bow, bow, bow, Siletta. That was the phrase, is a cultural reference for that music.

• 43:31Speaker 00

  And I think that that's where it kind of just, it just, it just was exponential after that. It just went from what you're gonna do, then Rewind was starting to go, do its thing. And people were just losing their minds to that song. Like, I remember my first personal form, PA of that song, I wasn't sure if the crowd were feeling it, because it goes into this bassline in the chorus, which is very, it feels like a halftime R and B record. I mean, yeah. So it's like, dum, dum dum.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  So it's like, re, e, wind. When a crowd say, Bo Siletta, re, e, wind. You've just got the bassline, dum, dum, it's halftime. You could just be slow jam.

• 44:08Speaker 00

  And I saw people, literally, they were standing like, and it wasn't like, we're not feeling it, but it's like, we don't know what to do here. Yeah. Like, cause the verse is, making moves, yeah, on a dance floor. You've got the garage things, cool. And then it goes, dum, dum dum.

• 44:23Speaker 00

  And people were like, and then when it, and that was this USP in the end. Hmm. People were like, that tune that does that halftime, I don't know, bassline thing, but it goes slow. And it set the tone for the whole thing. That song right there, still, it's like my baby. Cause I felt it when I walked home with my Sony Walkman, with my headphones on, on my Jack's going. So it's like, walking back, like, just listen to it, thinking, I don't need, this sounds songs, where I don't need any feedback, I don't need them to tell me what they think about it, how they feel. I know in my soul, this here.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Is the one, and it wasn't the one from it's gonna go off in a club. It's just gonna go off. When I go back to my flat, I had a huge sub speaker 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 through that speaker, I was like this, I'm good. I got the, the full uh feeling that I needed. So from then I was like, if this is the same for anyone else and they feel like this, then it's gone clear and they're being ugly.

• 45:27Steven Bartlett?

  And that is a timeless, timeless record. I mean, I listened to it before you came in here. So I was listening to it and I was like, fuck it. This could have come out last week. You know what I mean? It feels like that. Do you see what I mean? Like I played it and I was like, this could be, this would be a hit now.

• 45:38Speaker 00

  Bruh, I appreciate you.

• 45:40Steven Bartlett?

  You know what I mean though?

• 45:41Speaker 00

  A hundred.

• 45:41Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  It's that, it's that, it's a, it was a cultural record. It was, it feels very timeless. Like I, I did a show the other day, or even yes, last night, and I drop it in. The millennials are going crazy for it. The day ones are there going like, it's just that it's.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  It's one of those ones.

• 45:59Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? So.

• 46:01Steven Bartlett?

  So that leads you up to the, to the point where you start to release your first solo single.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 46:05Steven Bartlett?

  Fill Me In.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:07Steven Bartlett?

  Talk to me about that and that whole process because that went straight to number one. Um, from what you've said, I know it changed your life, right? From going, doing these PAs in clubs to doing, I think you did Wembley three nights in a row or some crazy, crazy. In a, in the space of a couple of months as well.

• 46:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, it, it, I mean, it went like from like zero to a hundred, the, literally. That's why it was kind of like. Behind the scenes, funny enough, even though I say zero to a hundred, there was a lot of learning curve that I was learning. So then doing the DJing, doing performances in front of a, a, a club, a club PA. Or even before that, when I was doing my DJing stuff as an MC. When the, the vinyl skipping and the crowd are looking at you like, yo, and, and you've got to improvise quickly. So man's going into some kind of MC like, you know, some of them, some of them are like this, some of them are holding the mic. I hope they're trying to find another bit of vinyl to put on because this one's gonna keep skipping. My hopeless, hopeless, when I write blah, blah, blah like this, jump around in my Adidas. Crazy. And everyone's just like, whoa. And then I get it to mix somehow perfectly. Yeah.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  And I'm sweating yeah, cause I'm thinking I nearly mashed the whole thing up. And after people come up saying, Craig, how sick when you did that thing? How did you do that? Why are you sweating so much? It's not even hot, the air conditioner's blasting, I was like, if only you knew. But it teed me up for performances going forward. So when we got to fill me in, I can just remember something happening when I was doing, there was a club called Sound, I think it was, on Leicester Square. And at this time now, Rewind had been released, it had gone to number two. People didn't really know who I was, they knew the name, which was, you know what I mean? You can get, that was always, using the name was always like a, it's like a tag, DJ tag thing. Like you, you put your name, DJ Khalid would do it, it'd be like, I'd be like Craig David all over you.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  So you knew who was on the record, just in case you, you were confused, yeah? And then, that then became sort of my intrinsic trademark thing that I did throughout that Born to Do it album. Um, so it'd just be like Craig David, it's another one, like all that, all that kind of stuff. Um, but yeah, I'd remember doing this, a performance, I'd had an interview in, in Capital FM. And I had to get across Leicester Square to go and do this, uh, a performance of it on Sound, which Capital were doing like radio performances from there. I knew something had really changed when the security, there was a security guard and he had to put me up. I went there with their, just being calm, I went into Capital, did the interview. The security guard had to put me up on his shoulders to get me across Leicester Square to Sound.

• 48:33Speaker 00

  Because there were fans going crazy, like, real, I could, for, for a moment in that period of time, the, the Justin Bieber thing, the, him before the Drakes, I mean, it was like, it was that fever pitch, where it was just like, whoa, BTS flex, it was like madness, like pandamonia, I, I just like, whoa, ripping, pulling, like it was, whoa, I was thinking something's changed. And I went and did the performance and then Fill Me In was was was building up to be my first number one. And it was my first solo single that went to number one and I it was it was a song that was released the same day as Destiny's Child's Say My Name. So to have a number one in the charts

• 49:15Speaker 00

  with a group that I'd grown up with posters on my wall and like thinking this is crazy. Saying Saying My Name is one of my favorite R and B songs all time. So just for Fill Me In to do what it did, I knew something had changed. I I just knew, well, it was quite obvious. And I was on this wave. It was euphoric. There was nothing I can I can put my finger on. It was like it was it was everything but more. It went from everything I touched was turning to gold because is I everyone wanted a piece of me and I was doing acoustic performances, which was to give a different feel for Fill Me In, which I think was a really

• 49:53Speaker 00

  clever move from at the at the time, my my record label um was was half owned uh by my my now manager, Colin Lester. Telstar and Capitol were involved. And it was just like, we wanted to find ways that it just didn't um exclude me from other radio stations and make it feel like it wasn't just this this radio thing. So we did performances like on Ra- on T F I Fridays and on Jules Holland, which were acoustic. And all of a sudden, I went from the Rise in Garage, quote unquote, star 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 gone clear at that point.

• 50:38Speaker 00

  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 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.

• 50:51Steven Bartlett?

  How old were you through this period? So you start, I mean, Fill Me In was when you were eighteen.

• 50:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, so yeah, so within the album dropped the same year. So two thousand and one was when I went over to the States. So it would have been like nineteen, like.

• 51:03Steven Bartlett?

  How does, how does an eighteen, nineteen year old deal with that? Cause 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, 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 all your demons, right? Cause now you've got the money, you've got the power, you've got this admiration. So talk to me about like the, the other side of that, that meteoric rise.

• 51:34Speaker 00

  I'd say channeling in of how I, or tuning into how I was at that time, I, I say the, it was euphoric. There was, I was like, whoa, everything's new. You're doing new places and going to the best restaurants and your eyes are wide open. You're on a plane to this country and I went, I was at the House of Blues in, in, in America doing, we had three nights there. And the first night, and I, and I tell this because it kind of just to give context to how bizarre it was. So remember I've come from, you know, 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 the set, jump fast forward, a few years later, House of Blues, three nights in a row.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  First night, Missy Elliott is, has come to, to watch the show. I'm looking up thinking, this is crazy. Like, wow, I can't stand the rain and just Missy Elliott, just 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. Yeah, it's just, there's, there's facts, yeah. The, the, the, the following night, sorry, how am I missing this? It was, it was Missy and Beyonce.

• 52:44Steven Bartlett?

  Fuck off.

• 52:44Speaker 00

  Then it was Jennifer Lopez. 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 and I couldn't quite work out cause the lights were too, too dark. So I got the, the front of house to turn the lights up and I look in the crowd and I'm singing Walking Away. And I look over and I see Stevie Wonder.

• 53:04Steven Bartlett?

  You're joking.

• 53:05Speaker 00

  Walking away. And I'm just like. I mean, what do you say at that point? I would didn't, I felt emotional. I felt, cause it was Stevie Wonder from the record collection, from my mom's stuff. Beyonce, I've got Destiny's Child on my wall, Jennifer Lopez on my wall, Missy Elliott I'd only been listening to before I come out. It was just like, you can't make this up. It was almost like, yes, you've behind the scenes and bam, here it is. And then I got to meet him at the end and he'd come with Quincy Jones, who we all know is the producer of all of the huge hits for Michael Jackson. And then Quincy said, you know, like, MJ, no, he said it even more like, like coded.

• 53:46Speaker 00

  He was like, yeah, M, it was like M, he said, it was like M's got your album, like, it's just like vibing. I said, oh, M, yeah, you know MJ and Michael, Michael's got like, he's got the album, he loves Born to Do It, he's been listening, gave it to his friends. I was like, stop this. If we can, if this is, if this is the thing, we've arrived, we're good, I've got my fix, there's not much more I could ask for. But it was literally the start of an incredible roller coaster ride, which left, the later years, I think, which we get into, it, it hops back to that and I can, I can see where the cracks were starting. Because when, to answer your question about the other side of it, it was so euphoric and I was so swept up on it.

• 54:26Speaker 00

  It was like getting on a surfboard and actually being on the wave and you're, you're doing, I don't know, 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 the, the, it's a rip, rip, girl, 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, Slickin' Your Average, dropped, which was only like a year or so later, two thousand and two. Had great success with What's Your Flavor and, and the songs were hitting, but there was this, Born to Do It had now done seven million albums. Six times platinum, six times platinum. It's, it's still, still crazy. And when you said about the Wembley Arena, three times sold out, I'm standing outside the, the sign I've got at my mom's house, like, there's a picture of, I'm like.

• 55:12Speaker 00

  You just can't make it up. It was so beautiful and I'm so grateful for those times. But I started to see from the slick and your average time where the record label would already start to quota. I was gonna do ten, eleven million, obviously slick and your average, cause now the trajectory is gonna be, has to go higher than this. So then when the album ended up coming out, it ended up selling three point five million albums. Um, three point five million albums. Yeah, at the time, I remember that there was this feeling in the company of, ah, hmm, right, only three point five.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  And I'm, I'm, I'm impressionable. I'm a young kid. I don't know. I, I've just got into this, the, the music business. And you're telling me that that's not a good thing. Cause the last time I checked, the feeling I'm getting is, I just have three point five million albums. Give three point five million to any artist now. Like, we're good. We're, we're, you're. So I'd already started to buy into, there was some, it was, there was a trajectory, the 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, the, the defining of, defining of product and defining of

• 56:34Speaker 00

  you being a commodity that has to achieve something now that you've set it up here. Whereas I thought it got fun. When you start to do, I thought it got more playful. No, no, it got more serious and there's more cooks in the kitchen. And everyone's got an opinion of the song you should be releasing. Expectation. Beyond. Expectation. The curse of all happiness and joy and. You must know this. You're just trying to equate what your self-worth through so many other people's expectation of you, like you said. So I'm trying to say, okay, cool. Well. We're here, I'm a songwriter, I'd always, I'd always had a really great rapport with my manager Colin Estes, I love the conversations that we've had over the years and, and him even saying at early doors

• 57:17Speaker 00

  that I can't guarantee you success, but 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, in, in the people that you're working with is, is 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

• 58:01Speaker 00

  three now. You slipped off and they're number one. 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 not, you're already kind of on the decline. So it's that, I had to ride that for a few more albums, if I'm being honest. 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, those first albums, they're very 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

• 58:44Speaker 00

  time and you've got to 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.

• 58:53Speaker 00

  I don't know any artist that, that, that won't feel that. And hats off and kudos to anyone who is able to sustain that. But as a human being, I know that's a tall order for anyone to be able to, to continuously do. And you start to see with any of the artists who we put in, from, from the Amy Winehouses, to the Michael Jacksons, to the Whitney Houston's, the height of success when it is like, whoa, like otherworldly. There's so much of the the human part that's been unmet that it it gets to a point where breaking point and then something happens, be it's drug addiction or if it it moves into mental health issues and depression, which are all so real that no human can vibrate at

• 59:37Speaker 00

  that level for that amount of time. And I 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 is on the next down story goes, I was back in my heart again. 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 that I know it's it's crushing you, you've 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. And those things, it started to get back in my heart because we can get heady and when it starts to get heady, you're out of you're not in sync with

• 1:00:19Speaker 00

  this. This is the real brains and I've learned that now. It's not, this is a is a loyal servant to the heart. But if you go from here and then that the you can find the the ways to get to A to B, but it has to start from here, you know.

• 1:00:35Steven Bartlett?

  And you described that journey as a as a roller coaster.

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:00:38Steven Bartlett?

  So what at what point did that roller coaster start heading down from that you place you describe as euphoria to a place where you weren't euphoric? Talk to me about the the down part of the roller coaster.

• 1:00:50Speaker 00

  I'd say when I released the Trust Me album in two thousand nine, it it just felt there was from where I'd started off with very cultural records like Rewind and Fill Me In, which is why we talked earlier how those songs you can play now and they still seem to hit. When I when I look at two thousand nine and the Trust Me album, I I felt like I was starting to

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  Make music that was to please, please people and to tick boxes. It was like I was, there's a song called Top of the Hill, which is a lovely song. I love the song, but if you listen to that song, to how it started off, it was very far removed. The type of music was becoming very live and it wasn't as, wasn't as synth based and so, which I'd drawn all my inspirations from as a kid. And that's not to say that you can't experiment, but I knew at that point I was entering into a new space. And then by the time I'd 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. Signsill Delivered was an album that I did just after that, which was, I was out of a deal at the time.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  Just because I'd run the tenure of my, my, 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 Signsill Delivered, which was a covers album. And I was singing like Dock of the Bay and the title song Signsill Delivered from Stevie. But verbatim, like the originals, it wasn't some chopped and screwed. It wasn't an R and B version. It wasn't a garage thing. It wasn't like your, it was like. The same song. The same song. 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? Do you want to continue making music like this?

• 1:02:47Speaker 00

  And thankfully the, the, 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 your 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,

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  act from that, not from the head saying, well, I 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, gonna be good, it's a soul thing. And then springboard off the back of that with your own album. That was the play. It 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.

• 1:04:04Steven Bartlett?

  And what, and what did you do then? This is when you moved to Miami?

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I was in, I was in Miami from two thousand and ten. So it was like about a year after that album. And I was there for about five, six years. For the first two, three years, the best time probably of my life, being out there. Anything and everything that you could possibly think of Miami being and what it was representing. But the latter period of that period, that time, was where something was ringing inside of me of you're in the wrong place. And this is what intuition is, very quiet. And it, and it's, it's, it's, it creeps up and it's, it's, it's not even nagging. It's like, you hear it and you're just, I don't want to hear it. I wanna, it's all, it looks great over here. You know what I mean? It looks so aesthetically pleasing for me. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:04:51Speaker 00

  The car and the apartment and the parties and the women. And it's like the parties that were just like, every day of the week, something going on. Music isn't really getting recorded now. Because the voice is, is destroyed from like shouting in a club and doing a nonsense. So music's getting pushed to the side. All the fancy toys and the vibe's starting to become more important. You know what I mean? It's like the, my balance of, of actual supply and demand of music that got me there was way off. I was literally creating hardly anything.

• 1:05:24Steven Bartlett?

  Is there shades of like, you, you going up on this trajectory when you were like a younger man, eighteen, nineteen, et cetera? And then going into this place where you almost abandoned your, like, your essence and your roots. And then 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. Like doing cover albums is by definition, you're covering other people's music and they're at a star. And then almost this, um, This period in Miami where you get into partying is, 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.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:57Steven Bartlett?

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

• 1:06:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:06:02Steven Bartlett?

  You'd had the Dom Perignon, you know, and you, and that wasn't it. So now you go back and ask yourself, what is it? What is it? And, and then it seems like with TS5, you, you created a new kind of expression of who Craig David is and who he always was.

• 1:06:17Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 1:06:17Steven Bartlett?

  Maybe who you'd lost sight of over the years because of all these temptations and your own success.

• 1:06:21Speaker 00

  Isn't that the truth? It's when you start to realise that actually going back to the things that, and it's all back in childhood, this is the thing, when I, when I tune in, it's like the decks and the DJ and the mixtapes, that was all I was trying to do when I was doing the TS5 house party. I just wanted to feel that again, like I'm mixing now with my little pioneer DJ setup and I'm on the microphone being the host of the most this and I just want everyone to feel that feeling that I got into the whole thing for.

• 1:06:50Steven Bartlett?

  And if someone doesn't know what TS5 is.

• 1:06:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:53Steven Bartlett?

  Can you explain, just give an overview of what, exactly what it is?

• 1:06:56Speaker 00

  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, cause I used to DJ when I first started off, as we've spoken about before, and I was at that point then DJ fade. So I honed all my skills on, on using vinyl and Technics 1210s. The TS5 set is, the name came from the apartment in Miami 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, to come out of my, my DJ booth and sing and do a performance in a way for me that is, is giving me all the feels I got from when I was a DJ, but also I can do the performances and drop some gems in there at the same time.

• 1:07:41Speaker 00

  Like I can play a TLC No Scrubs or I can play Say My Name and then go in to Fill Me In. I just love it and taking that to pool parties I did in Ibiza.

• 1:07:51Speaker 00

  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. I just can't, like, I get that can work in certain, and I have no judgment, it's do your thing. 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 festivals. So that's really what TS5 is.

• 1:08:29Steven Bartlett?

  And it's become a phenomenal brand, phenomenal brand for music putting. And it's funny because it's such a, it's quite rare that you have someone that has that kind of skill stack, of all those different pieces that can do that. I think that's probably why it's been such a, 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. It's like a really interesting new thing.

• 1:08:52Speaker 00

  Totally. I felt, I felt it in, I got a little touch of it in the party when I was in my house parties. 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 put, okay, that puzzle, that piece there meant, you needed that piece to happen for this one to happen. So when I was performing in my house, I wasn't actually performing in my own songs at all. Cause I just felt like, I don't want to start dropping my own songs in the middle of the thing. And then I have people come over and be like, bro, drop that, fill me in, drop rewind. One girl came over and said, drop Seven Days. And I was like, nah. And she goes, please, this is my favorite song. And I was like, and I looked, I was like, maybe I might do a verse, just one, one piece of verse.

• 1:09:36Speaker 00

  And it started me, the idea of putting a couple of my songs in. And then we started to record the set, I started to record the set and put it on Soundcloud so people could listen to it after. Cause people were like, oh, where can I get, I'd love to listen to back to that set. Or we did, sang a happy birthday to someone and it was a moment that they wanted to hear again. No one caught it. And I was like, well, let me capture this now. And that was actually where it flipped back into mixtape land that I then got, my manager took it into Kiss. Kiss originally were like, we can air this, put it out as a, as a show. And then it went on to Capitol, Capitol aired it as well and Capitol 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 of early shows, one, uh, two shows in Hackney. To see if this house party would translate into an actual thing.

• 1:10:20Speaker 00

  And when I saw people 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, the, one of the pinnacle of it. Because you're there in front of a crowd who are 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 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 of shots with playing off iTunes.

• 1:10:52Steven Bartlett?

  To Glastonbury.

• 1:10:53Speaker 00

  To Glastonbury, that was crazy. So it just, it's always there, the pieces are always there, but time, sometimes you just need to have time and patience in this.

• 1:11:02Steven Bartlett?

  It's so interesting looking at your story as, as like an outsider and watching that journey of you being this like huge mega star. Then the, the downside of the roller coaster, you describe it. 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 resonant as what you used to do, a very, very different proposition. 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. You know, I used to listen to my Walkman and then there was a gap. And then you're back in again where everyone's talking about Craig David again, but for a completely different proposition, what appears to be a completely different proposition. That's not common or easy.

• 1:11:45Steven Bartlett?

  The question I actually have for you is because it's a roller coaster, your mind goes on the roller coaster as well. And this kind of brings me into the, the topic of mental health.

• 1:11:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:55Steven Bartlett?

  Be honest with me, what was the, the mental health journey throughout that whole period of time?

• 1:12:00Speaker 00

  Do you know where I sit in, there was a long period of time. I, I guess that those, um, those words of, of, of man up or, or you, you just, just, just, just, just, just roll with it. Just roll with it, just man up is the most amount of nonsense that I've ever had. Cause it's that in of itself is what's, is what's caused the crazy suicide rates that we see, especially in, in men. And the way in which it's spiraling out of 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. And thankfully.

• 1:12:43Speaker 00

  And this goes back to my parents, my grandma and my mum in particular. It was all about open and conversation and then speaking and have have open conversation and be able to get it out. Have a convo. And I think that there was periods where I just, I ride, rode through it. And I think Miami was kind of just, was a, was a break from a lot of things and me being out there and being a different climate, a different culture, enjoying those things, but that still wasn't fulfilling what I was really looking for. What I really wanted was connection and relationship in a way that I'd experienced almost in those kind of early doors before the first album and when it hit. So the roller coaster ride is, you find character in your lows.

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  One hundred percent, you, you ask the questions, the real question, do you really want to do this? Are you really about this? And I am a musician through and through. Um, and I love it, but the, the, the depression is real. Mental health in, in the, in the multitude and myriad of different ways that that can come about is real. And it's the, and it's something that

• 1:13:50Speaker 00

  you can only, half the battle I've always spoken about that you, is, is talking to, has been to express that to someone you can confide in. And even if it's not something you can confide in, in a phone line that you can pick up and just speak to someone you don't know. Maybe in some ways that's, that can be even better. You can just go, I've got it on 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, the dark night of the soul of going through into a place where you're gonna 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. And then you start to see where it lands. You start to say, okay, this was a story that I was telling myself.

• 1:14:34Speaker 00

  The things I was defining myself of myself were through how I looked and the approval of others. This was authority figures feeling like they had something over me. The power I had when I was the entrepreneur selling chocolates and, and making the songs. That's really you, who I've always been. But I had the band and you used that earlier, banding yourself. When that starts to happen. It could spiral out of 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 cumulatively build up, but then there's something that breaks it, just snaps it.

• 1:15:17Speaker 00

  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. And I feel it's necessary because it's, I don't wanna be the one who's telling the story. I wanna be so authentic and I wanna open up. 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. Because in that is where all the beauty and empathy really is and people could connect and they say, oh, what? So you went through that. Ah, so it isn't this thing that only me. And all of a sudden, we're all connected and I'm thinking, yes. And then I'm, I'm inspired by people who kind of wear the heart on their sleeves now.

• 1:15:59Speaker 00

  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 being able to just make music in the way I did, coming back to the UK. And then as soon as I did that and I felt, I felt my first huge hug when I walked in and saw Big Nasty, Corrupt FM, Mr. Jam, Stormzus in the building, Shola Amma. And I did this, this one extra performance, which was really, I was gonna rock up and vibe Fill Me In. And I ended up singing it over Where Are You Now?, the Justin Bieber Diplo Skrillex instrumental. There was this moment of love, I felt. Big Nasty giving me a hug first when I came in wearing his heart on his sleeve.

• 1:16:43Speaker 00

  Booty Man's my tune, oh my god, great. Booty Man is my song. And I'm like, whoa, like really wearing his heart on his sleeve. And then sing this song, sing Fill Me In as a remix vibe 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 that you need to check it 45 minutes into the show. Then I'm seeing Skrillex on my timeline, I'm seeing Diplo on the timeline. I'm just thinking, something's happened here. But it was more than just.

• 1:17:16Speaker 00

  It needed me to play my part and get back home and get go through that Miami phase of what that was all about.

• 1:17:23Steven Bartlett?

  I I I find it really interesting that that's the face. So is 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 felt fell into a depression?

• 1:17:33Speaker 00

  In the in the latter stages.

• 1:17:35Steven Bartlett?

  Of Miami?

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, because I got I got injured out there. My my back went like in like in my lower back. And I never felt a pain like that in my life. Like, I felt aches and pains of of training incidents and different things. I've had like anyone who's had like a blow out 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, your hundred percent, you're doing the last kind of leg leg press and all these is 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

• 1:18:17Speaker 00

  in like two hundred and forty volts in the wall, that it's just it's different. It's 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've 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. Like, it was continuous nerve

• 1:18:58Speaker 00

  spasm. I was like, it was a spiral for me. It was it was a point where I had dark thoughts. I was just like, I can't live my life like this. So I understood, really, at that point, the first time depression hit me, and I couldn't reframe it as being positive. I couldn't say this is put a positive spin on it. There was nothing. So I had the mental thing. So I was getting I kind of signed up for for a good for to be someone who you have to experience certain things to be able to speak on it. And I get that now. So it's like, okay, well, if you come here to to to a mission to do this, you're gonna have to feel pain physically, you're gonna have to feel heartbreak, you're gonna have to feel anxiety and abandonment of of your body. You're you're gonna have to feel all these things.

• 1:19:44Speaker 00

  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 dead lists and I don't need to be training like the way I trained before. 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. 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 and being able to break down things and unpack things. And as a

• 1:20:26Speaker 00

  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 of years, three years. I was like,

• 1:20:43Speaker 00

  and even to, I mean, even to this day, I'll put my hands up. I'm still working out like, do we, 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.

• 1:20:58Speaker 00

  Like I said, depression, you'll have dark thoughts. Dark thoughts. You'll have, you'll start having thoughts. So you're like, if this pain continuously goes on like this, then I, I can't, it sounds crazy for me even saying it because I'm like, you're the nicest guy and you're so positive and you're like, how could it? But I was like, I just can't live like that. I can't live like this. So you start not thinking about ways that you would say, I'm lose, I'm, take your life or to dip out, but you start having thoughts of

• 1:21:32Speaker 00

  something has to happen. Like this, this pain is intolerable. I can't even style it out. There's nothing for it. And I think that that. When it started to dial down and we've done it from injections and all different kinds of things conservatively and strengthening the multifidus and the paraspinals and the glutes. I know my body so well now, it got me back into my body. More importantly, I started to understand the mechanics of how my body works. I never really listened to things. You know when you get a little ache and a pain or you get a little thing? Telltale sign is ten years ago, you got a blowout and then it blows out again. And you didn't listen, you keep going. All it does, it just amps up the sound till you get the one, you got the memo now? Okay, cool. Now you've got the memo. That's how the universe works. So I'm really in tune with my body.

• 1:22:14Speaker 00

  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 gonna let me know the hard way.

• 1:22:21Steven Bartlett?

  Amen.

• 1:22:22Speaker 00

  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. I can go out there and perform like I love. I don't need to be putting the extra work in in a gym to satisfy anything that's, I can go swimming, I can move my body. And I can, the things I can dial it up and we can get whatever we'll be looking for, but who is it for? It's not for anyone anymore, I don't need that.

• 1:22:49Steven Bartlett?

  But you are back, you're back in the UK now?

• 1:22:52Speaker 00

  Back in the UK.

• 1:22:53Steven Bartlett?

  Back in the UK. 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 phrase, foot on the gas, right? It kind of sounds, it has hints of a former Craig.

• 1:23:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, when you even said foot off the gas, yeah. I don't know what day I was saying that or why I was feeling that. Yeah. When you, when you said it to me then, I knew exactly as you were gonna say, like, what's this foot on the gas thing? Because that would suggest that you're headstrong, run into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:30Steven Bartlett?

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

• 1:23:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. It's like we're not, didn't take the foot off the gas. Just relax, there's no need for the, for the, save your petrol, just, just calm yourself. Stay, sometimes staying still, weirdly enough, is actually the one. I recognize when I stay still and the world moves, it's like, wow.

• 1:23:51Steven Bartlett?

  Pandemic.

• 1:23:52Speaker 00

  That I've got to say had for for everything and the and the the pain it caused and the the people who lost their lives and families that were that were suffering so deeply and still are.

• 1:24:05Speaker 00

  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 where I can't control this. So, okay, break open the monopoly board. Let's let's let's have a game then. All of a sudden, back into kid, back into the child again. The child was seen, play started to happen. And as much as like, we we we all like to say that we need to be the the thing of doing, doing, doing, but sometimes doing nothing. Don't don't don't think that the world isn't working for you behind the scenes here 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. So why would that be no different for the way that we are when let me let me sleep on

• 1:24:50Speaker 00

  this, let me slow down. And man, it's 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 got the media training here, have to be 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 gonna work. We want love. We want a heart-based relationship, so.

• 1:25:24Steven Bartlett?

  That failed us, right? We tried that and it failed us.

• 1:25:26Speaker 00

  It failed deeply, man.

• 1:25:28Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:28Speaker 00

  It really did.

• 1:25:29Steven Bartlett?

  And as we look forward, you've got this album coming out, which I'm really excited about called Twenty Two.

• 1:25:32Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:25:33Steven Bartlett?

  And it's coming out on the twenty fourth of June this year.

• 1:25:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:25:37Steven Bartlett?

  Talk to me, you know, throughout this, it's been twenty two years as well since you your first.

• 1:25:42Speaker 00

  First album.

• 1:25:42Steven Bartlett?

  First album. So twenty two years later, your album Twenty Two comes out. What can I expect from this? What is the inspiration? What is the art, the creativity, the pain? What is the, what is, what is it?

• 1:25:55Speaker 00

  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. It was me getting the, the golden ticket. Let's say it's the golden ticket. We're entering into the, the Chocolate Factory now excited, but not the ending, right? Then I had to go through life a little. And now I'm 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. It felt like how I was when I made my first album. If I wanted to do a verse today, cool. If not, I'm gonna go downstairs to the kitchen and maybe I'll throw on a movie and maybe I'll come back up.

• 1:26:35Speaker 00

  I was grateful that I had that privilege to be able to do that and to bake home as productive as I wanted it to be or as relaxed as I wanted to be. It feels like it has all the, it has all the feels, it feels like has all the feels of my first album Born to Do It. I feel like the kid again. And I keep using the word feel because I think that's the most important. That's my, that's the only thing I can really gauge then. How am I feeling? I've got a big sub speaker in my, in my, in my, in my home in, in, in London.

• 1:27:03Steven Bartlett?

  Again.

• 1:27:03Speaker 00

  Same thing. Literally, I got to, I literally just patterned the same thing with a couple of blue lights to make it just look a little bit like I was a two point O version of the same. But same big speaker, I can play it loud. I've had people come over and I've said, you, you need to understand what bass is, like really. Cause they think they know what bass is, you got a little sonar system and it's all cool, got a little couple of subs. No, no, no, no, no. Listen to this and you get that. Well, it's, it's different. So I feel like I've got the R and B on there. I've got the, the garage on there. I've got songs that I feel that weave 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

• 1:27:45Speaker 00

  that doesn't set you off as being like, oh, you, you were like in the two thousands and you're, bro, no one says that anymore. No one's saying tipsy in the, in the club anymore. No one's even really saying getting wavy anymore. That's sort of like a bit a couple of years back. You know what I mean? What's the new? 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. I just feel like we've, yeah, I don't wanna gas it because it feels like everybody does that, right? Yeah, it's just, it feels really true to where I'm at right now and I've got, I listened to it and I'm excited to listen back to this album and as I have done since really the following my intuition album, since I came back, two thousand and sixteen did that one,

• 1:28:30Speaker 00

  Time Is Now and this one, but this one feels like with that, I'm a journeyman, that's the cover, album cover is me on a journey and I feel like that journeyman of just twenty two years in now. 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 kinda got him to take that fizzy lifting drink and he started to go up into the thing. It wasn't really Charlie, he was calm, he was actually being the good one across it. It was his granddad that kinda going, right? To get to the end where the everlasting gobstopper part, where he has a choice to sell himself out, go sell it for fifty thousand pounds, I think, to the competitor chocolate maker

• 1:29:13Speaker 00

  of Slugworth, or does he go back and put it back on Willy Wonka's desk and do the right thing, knowing he's going away with nothing? I feel like I'm at that place where I'm in, I'm creating an album and I'm willing to, I'm willing to trade in all of the things that I'd up until this point, this pretense that maybe I had behind the scene that people didn't, you know, there's always getting eighty percent of me, but there was a twenty percent and that's enough, or ten percent of me that's not, is enough. It's like the princess and the pea. Trust me, it's underneath there and it will keep getting you. It's like the thorn in the foot, it's like it doesn't have to be big, not some big drama, but it's getting you, right? I wanna pull the thorn out, I wanna find the pea, alright, I wanna, I wanna say, I

• 1:29:55Speaker 00

  wanna sleep in my night, in my mattress where I'm not feeling slightly uncomfortable because I know there's something underneath there, there's a needle in a haystack and I don't want, I know it's in there, yeah, we gotta find it. I'm at that stage where I'm dropping this album, that I feel I've put the everlasting gobstopper back and I have no idea if Willy Wonka's gonna turn around and say. Charlie, you did it. I knew you would do it. 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? You've got the whole chocolate factory. You've got the whole chocolate factory and his family can move in. And everyone can be part of it. And that's how I'm feeling now. Everyone can be part of this. This is, this is different now. So I'm excited, man.

• 1:30:33Steven Bartlett?

  I'm excited. And do you know what? I'm, I was excited before, but hearing your description of it and feeling your energy about where this is coming from, and it's coming from that place of like, your intuition, your wisdom and your maturity. And over those 22 years, all of that unbelievable twisting journey that you've been on to create a record now.

• 1:30:52Steven Bartlett?

  Which in, like, which sort of collects all of that wisdom. And all of that emotion and truth and pain and experience is really something to be excited about as a Craig David fan. So thank you for, for giving us another project. I've not heard it yet. They wouldn't, they wouldn't let me hear it, but I, but I can't, can't wait.

• 1:31:10Speaker 00

  I'll, listen, you know what? On the real, not just the, because I always feel like these, these moments have always more than, like you've done, you've done your, your moment together, but I just feel there's a friendship building here anyway. So I'll, I'll, we'll hook out and I'll, I'll play the album. We'll get some food and we'll vibe. So it's calm. You'll be well ahead of the game.

• 1:31:28Steven Bartlett?

  No, do 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 in through the door, it was like you were my brother. 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, look, thank you. Thank you so much for your time. We have a closing tradition on this podcast. Which is the previous guest writes, and the next guest a question.

• 1:31:57Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 1:31:58Steven Bartlett?

  So I'm good. And I don't get to see what it is until I open the book.

• 1:32:00Speaker 00

  Nice, nice.

• 1:32:01Steven Bartlett?

  So the preview, and this is a very good one, in fact, very fitting. The previous guest wrote, if you could whisper in the ear of your 14 year old self, what would you whisper?

• 1:32:11Speaker 00

  That's good. That's good. That's good.

• 1:32:16Speaker 00

  Listen Craig, I know this might freak you out because you're hearing a voice in your ear right now, but trust me, I'm a little older version of you and everything you're about to 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 of years' time. So get ready and trust me, the crowd are gonna go off when they hear something soon, okay? Love to you my man.

• 1:32:58Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, amen. It was like a prayer. Thank you so much, Greg Gonsalves. Thank you honestly, it's a huge honour. And your vulnerability and openness, you don't know, you won't ever get to see the impact it has. I probably will, I'll get the comments and the messages and you will as well, but the impact of you 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 really, you know, the impact you're gonna have on a lot of young men specifically is profound and yeah, long-lasting. So thank you brother.

• 1:33:30Speaker 00

  Thank you and freedom mutual man, genuine, appreciate it. Thank you.