Centre stage: The return of Craig David

The UK’s prince of R&B has found his smile again, writes Dean Van Nguyen.

Craig David is 35-years-old. That’s pretty young, but for the generation that came of age around the turn of the millennium, his slick hybrid of lover-man pop-R&B and pirate radio UK garage comes buttered in nostalgia.

The hits came thick back then: the sleek ‘n’ soulful symphony Fill Me In, cheeky calendar counting classic 7 Days, Artful Dodger’s blissful 2-step garage anthem Rewind.

David made Saturday night music you could vibe out to on a Sunday morning.

Today, the singer is owning that sense of sentimentality while mixing in plenty of new-age flavours.

Latest record Follow My Intuition – which dropped last September, his first UK number 1 since his debut album Born To Do It – fuses old school garage jams with more forward-thinking modern pop cuts.

Looking out on the crowds turning up to his stadium shows, David sees the perfect distillation of young fans and original disciples.

“It’s been unreal seeing the people who have grown up with my music being so into the new stuff that I’ve been bringing out,” says David, speaking over the phone mid-tour.

“I’ve seen teenagers and maybe younger who’ve been tweeting, ‘Have you heard of this new kid called Craig David, he’s got a new song called When the Bassline Drops.

It’s the most bizarre thing to hear because I never expected a whole new generation to come on board.”

David’s voyage back to the summit of pop stardom has been laced with potholes, hazards and detours.

His last album Signed Sealed Delivered, released in 2010, was a Motown covers record.

That’s normally the kind of project reserved for aging legends, not stars still in their twenties who should be at the peak of their powers.

What followed was an American odyssey that lasted half a decade.

Pitching up in South Florida, David’s life became a blur of sunny days, club nights and Miami vices.

He enjoyed his cash and became obsessed with physical fitness.

It was a kind of lost weekend, but with decent weather.

Everything seemed idyllic.

But as the author Shannon L. Alder once said, “Life always begins with one step outside of your comfort zone”.

Miami’s perfect beaches and neon nightlife might have looked great on the postcards he sent home, but none of it made David creatively content.

He needed to switch things up.

“It’s either that you’re on a course that goes direct to where your goals or your aspirations are, or you tend to go around the houses a little bit to get there, and it just depends on how far you want to deviate away from it,” he says.

“Miami was a deviation, in terms of my music it wasn’t the best thing for me. It felt like a glorified holiday out there.”

David continues, “When I was out in Miami, I felt creatively it wasn’t the place to be.

“I bought into the dream that I’d just go out there and the lifestyle, and it wasn’t for me.

“As soon as I moved back to the UK, the culture, being close to my friends and family, and the music, I just felt that this was so right the place to be.”

It’s common to look at David’s career as a tidy narrative: rise, fall and rise again.

In fact, the star himself does see his own journey somewhat mirroring his 2003 single Rise and Fall.

The song charts a young superstar who gets blinded and, then, isolated by the perks of stardom.

Sting sings the chorus, playing an older celebrity issuing a warning.

Now, it’s David who is the senior guy.

“Whenever I’ve been performing Rise and Fall in the shows, I had no idea that that song in particular was going to be pretty much an autobiography of my career,” says David.

“Having come out of the box such a success, from being in the club one minute to the next thing selling out Wembley Arena, and then to have a lull in my career.

“At that point it was like, ‘Do I really want this’ and the answer was always ‘yes’.”

Returning to the UK to record Follow My Intuition, David tested himself by flooding his orbit with a wide variety of musicians and producers.

The result is a long, eclectic record.

When The Bassline Drops deletes the last 17 years and drops you straight into London 2000, when garage boomed from every car stereo, crumbling the pavement beneath to dust.

The link to past and present is clearly crystalised on 16, a mash-up that sees Craig resurrect lyrics from Fill Me In and lay them on top of the beat original forged for Jack Ü and Justin Bieber’s hit Where Are Ü Now.

“It was about leaning into in the unknown and working with up and coming producers, which is the same way that I met Mark Hill [formerly one-half of Artful Dodger] when we did the first album,” says David. “There was no real plan, I’d just go into each session and do my best.

“I really wanted to give an album to people that grew on my music.”

David’s comeback trail next takes him to Dublin’s 3Arena, where he’s set to perform on Friday, April 7.

The gig will encapsulate all four corners of the star’s artistry.

Craig won’t just be airing out hits from his near-20 year catalogue.

The show will switch up from a band-led concert to a thumping DJ set, taking David all the way back to his teenage years back in his hometown of Southampton.

“I was DJing before I released the first album back in 2000.

“For a good five or six years I was riding the circuit on the south coast down in Southampton, DJing and emceeing,” he says.

“We then went into the band part of the show and that was running for most of my career.

“I was just like, ‘Oh man, the DJ part is something that I’ve always missed.’”

The DJ set is also inspired by David’s Ts5 initiative.

One of the more positive aspects of his time in Miami, Ts5 grew out of Craig’s frustration with the elitist nature of the club scene’s VIP areas.

What started out as a house party (“Ts5” being the name of David’s apartment) became an interlocking enterprise of Soundcloud mixes, a radio network and live shows.

“While I was in Miami, it was kind of a silver lining that the parties I was throwing in my house is where Ts5 really was born,” says David.

“I just included that into [my gigs] and it feels like now I ‘ve got a show that represents everything I do.”

Craig David, it seems, has found his smile again.

And why not? He’s an artist who stared at the abyss from a hot Miami balcony but refused the dive.

If a musical career is going to be long, though, nadirs will happen.

It’s how you come back that matters.

And here we are in 2017, with David feeling very grateful.

“The two things that I’ve realised over the years that make me so happy is creating music from scratch – there not being song and then having a finished song at the end of the day is the best feeling ever – and going out on stage and performing in front of crowds and seeing them having so much fun.

“And also, it being a time stamp in their lives. I never realised as a kid growing up that when I sing some of the older songs from the Born To Do It album, that those songs would be a memory that people will continue to have.”

Still a young man, David wants to continue to be a memory maker: “I’ve always believed you’re only three minutes from writing a song that can change your life.

“It’s just a case of if you’re willing to dig deep.”

Craig David plays Dublin’s 3Arena on Friday, April 7. 

www.craigdavid.com