Craig David gave Complex the exclusive on his return to the music game nearly a year ago. Since that time, the R&B-dance don's career has seen a complete 360 turnaround: he's had a top 10 hit-single in "When The Bassline Drops", held a weekly residency at Ibiza Rocks, sold-out shows at Camden's KOKO and the Brixton Academy, performed live on The Jonathan Ross Show and The X Factor and—to top it all off—he's up for two gongs, Best Male and Best Song, at this year's MOBO Awards. Life is far from shabby for the "7 Days" crooner who is about to cap off his comeback campaign with a brand new album, Following My Intuition—his first since 2010's Signed Sealed Delivered—plus a 16-date, nationwide arena tour.
"I'm still feeling like I'm 16," he says, with the same excitement in his tone as last year. The fire's still burning for Craig and his art, and it's not about to go out anytime soon. Complex got the lowdown.
COMPLEX: A lot has happened for you since we last spoke—you were just about to embark on your comeback campaign. How have you found the whole experience?
Craig David: It's been surreal, man, to say the least. When we saw each other in the studio and we were talking about records and influences, pretty much around the time the whole Kurupt FM, Mistajam thing went down where we recorded "Where Are You Now?"—that's actually on the album, which I'm very gassed about—but a feeling of how quickly it's got from that moment to now, and all the things in between, and me clocking you from the balcony at Ibiza Rocks, I literally couldn't have written this. I don't take any of this for granted. I'm truly overwhelmed.
Did you ever imagine the reception would be as big as it has been?
I didn't know how the people who grew up on my music would react. I just wanted to make that garage and R&B I was making first time round, so I was catering for the mindset of the people who've grown up on my music. I was like, "I'm just gonna do what I always used to do; not overdo it, just enjoy the journey and hopefully those people will get into the new stuff I'm doing." Literally, 5, 6, 7, 8 year-olds, 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds, all getting down to my music. I've had kids come up to me and say: "Have you heard this kid called Craig David?" That got me hyped! That one definitely blindsided me. I'm very grateful for that because now I'm seeing the kids loving it and they're talking about how they love the new freestyle I've done and then the mums and dads are like, "You don't know. I saw Craig David back in the day!"
"When The Bassline Drops", to me, is now a Craig David classic. How has it been working and touring with Big Narstie on a more frequent level?
One of the best things about "When The Bassline Drops", outside of it doing well in the clubs and being a top 10 hit, is seeing Big Narstie at the forefront and people recognising him as being not only an amazing personality, but also that guy who champions people; the point-person for kids from broken homes to look to and see where he's got to and what he has achieved. To see him getting the shine has been the most amazing thing to me. I've learned so much from him. Then there was that moment on The Jonathan Ross Show when I looked at him and was like, "Bro, we're performing 'When The Bassline Drops' for the entire country. This is not just about you having a little moment on TV—you've brought grime to certain parts of the country that might not even know what grime was." That made me happy because it has to be about bringing people through, championing people, otherwise what are we doing it for? It's not a competition, and I love that about Big Narstie. He thanks me so many times and I'm like, "Thank YOU, because you gave me an opportunity too."
What was it like taking your TS5 party over to Ibiza Rocks for a residency this year?
When I first posted the announcement on Instagram, a mate of mine—who came out to some of the early TS5 shows that I did in my home back in Miami—was like, "Bruv! Are you out of your mind!?" And I was shocked as he was, to have something I was doing for fun at home become this big event in Ibiza. Then, to top it all off, the response of people coming out to it has been amazing. For me, TS5 is intimate, which is why we made the DJ booth in the middle of the crowd. I've had so many people going away from it saying they've had the best experience of a pool party, and now they fully understood what TS5 is all about. This has translated from a house party in Miami, played in Hackney in London, then to get into Shapes, KOKO, the Manchester Academy and then to play out in Ibiza—man, it has just been great. It works as an international thing now, as opposed to it just working as a house party. And that, to me, is a wicked feeling.
What was it about Ibiza Rocks that made you want to collaborate with them?
They seem to have a good ear for what's going on. What was amazing about it is Ibiza Rocks, as a brand, are trying to be at the forefront of what's going down musically. At the same time, where it's situated inside the Ibiza Rocks Hotel, that venue is set up perfectly to be a better venue. You've got the balconies running up the inside, filled with people there just to stay on holiday, VIP balconies, then you've got a proper balcony, a few lounge areas but predominantly, it's the people who are standing next to me who are feeling like they're part of it. For me, that's what made the Ibiza Rocks residency so exciting. It wasn't just me on a stage, with people watching a performance—they felt like they were actually raving with me. What gets me excited is the fact that I can go from "Rhythm & Gash" to "Pony" into "Feed Em To The Lions", because anything goes and people seem to love the variation.
Do you think you'd do it again next year? Are you planning to?
I would love to do that all over again. I've got to say, not just to hype up Ibiza Rocks and gas up the whole thing, I had one of the most fun eight weeks of my life there. Being in the crowd and doing something like that was just amazing, man. I was headlining Common People in Southampton to about 40,000 people doing a TS5 set, and I had my mum there in tears, really emotional, and dad with a poker face—I clocked him on the sly and he clocked me as well [laughs]. Usually, he's like: "Yeah, you know..." He's that kind of guy. But when I saw him smiling, what I realised was that it's incredible to see how it fits into all these different pockets. My mum said to me: "Craig, you're doing the same thing you did when you were 15 years old in your bedroom making mix CDs." I said, "I know. It's the craziest thing! It's why I'm in Ibiza and it's why I'm doing what I'm doing now."
So talk to me about Following My Intuition, your forthcoming—sixth!—studio album. Why that title?
OK, so the title, funnily enough, is something that I didn't realise I was actually doing when I was creating. When I was 16, I didn't really know what intuition was as a word, even. It's one of those things you experience but you don't really know what it is. So when my mates were calling up, when I was living on a council estate, shouting from the second balcony of my flat: "Come on! Let's go raving tonight." Nine times out of ten I'd be like, "Nah. I need to finish this song I've started, because if I go out with you guys, you know what's going to happen: we're gonna get drunk, we're gonna get mash-up, and then I won't be able to think for the next few days." So the odd occasion I would go out with them, exactly that would happen. When I look back in hindsight, of the 90% of the time when I said no, and I look back at what the songs ended up being, it ended up being "Rewind", "Fill Me In", "7 Days", "Walking Away", the whole album basically.
I'M HAPPY TO BE INVOLVED IN SUCH A THRIVING MUSIC SCENE. I'M SEEING GUYS LIKE KANO AND GIGGS RELEASE BIG RECORDS, AND THEY'RE DOING IT THEIR OWN WAY.
So when we talk about intuition, there was something inside me that I couldn't define but it was telling me to stay indoors, finish off these tunes. Fast forward 16 years to making this album, and I've got 16 years worth of wisdom. The reason I call it Following My Intuition is because now I actually know that when I do what's in my heart, as opposed to what my head tries to tell me to do, it feels real and authentic and passionate. And that started from getting back to the basics of me making music the way I used to enjoy making music. Who would've known I'd bump into Big Narstie in 1Xtra? Who would've known I'd get an X Factor call-up for the finals? How does the cover I did on 1Xtra end up becoming what Radio 1 are trying to put on because it went viral? Then obviously Ibiza Rocks and, all of a sudden, I'm standing on-stage at Glastonbury. It's been an amazing time.
Sonically, what can we expect from the album?
Half of it is an R&B record because that's what kind of excites me the most. You've heard "When The Bassline Drops", "One More Time", so you've had the garage and the dance side of what I do, but it's the R&B that I know people who grew up with me want. I haven't gone throwback on the R&B—it's a little bit dead to go back and do the old. What it is, is a draw from the simplicity of songs like Usher's "You Make Me Wanna". Those type of vibes.
Light, easy listening.
Yeah, you know the ones where you just have to hear the opening line and you're in? And I think drawing from those inspirations and working with Tre Jean-Marie, White N3rd, Kaytranada, whatever people I feel that understand the whole thing, they understand the old school but their interpretation is 2016. For me, that's why this album is going to be exciting for the younger generation saying to their friends, "I didn't know he did R&B!" We've got some tunes on there. When you put together songs for an album, and this is writing songs not writing for an album as well, you've got such a load and you're trying to cut it down to 16 songs or whatever—you're picking from the best of what you've done over hundreds of sessions. The odds are on your side that hopefully at the end you're going to have 16 songs. That's why people are so gassed about Born To Do It still. People say they feel like it's something they can listen to all the way through without skipping through couple album fillers.
Do you feel like you've had to change in any way to cater to new audiences?
I feel like my lane, rather than me going to it, it's just fallen back into what I was always doing. Over the years, what I've learned is when you just do your thing, all the flows come back out, lyrics, the lot! I think the younger generation are happy to get on board because they're like, "Oh, well, we know about this thing that's going on." Nowadays, an R&B tune is likely to be a DJ Mustard beat; it's gonna be 100bpm and it's gonna be Jeremih—you know what you're gonna get. All it is, is a hip-hop tune with an R&B artist over it. And the TS5 thing: people from before who know Born To Do It didn't know I could DJ or do any of that stuff. So it's almost like a rediscovery, but it's all organic.
In the last interview, we talked about when you released your first album and when it came to releasing your second you felt like it didn't do so well. Where you're at right now, do you care about chart positioning or are you just happy to have your work out there in the world?
You know what? I'm so hyped and gassed that I'm actually releasing a new album. For me, it's been such a long time since I've wanted to put one of my own albums on. I mean, I love all my albums... I use the metaphor they're like my children: some do better than others, but you love them all equally. But this album, I'll put it on and I just wish I had some more sub-bass speakers in my house! You know those old-school scoops, yeah? Those proper old-school soundsystem scoops that you get from Killamanjaro or David Rodigan—I need a few more the of those because I just want to pump it loud. But in terms of statistics and all that stuff—from the bottom of my heart, I genuinely don't care. I just want to make a body of work that when people hear it they say: "That boy's back on his A-game." I'm happy to be involved in such a thriving music scene. I'm seeing guys like Kano and Giggs release big records, and they're doing it their own way. I'd love Mike Skinner to put a new album out, too. I want to celebrate UK music in general and not get too gassed that you don't want to bring through and champion other people.
Speaking of the UK, are you back over here now or are you still based out in Miami?
The time I saw you in the studio, Matt Dodds—he's one of the young guys from my management company—he said in one of the meetings: "Look, I'm not gonna to talk to you from a management perspective, I'm talking to you as a fan of your music here: we're going to lose you if you keep on going back to Miami and talking like you're making bare tunes when, really, you're getting a suntan and driving about." And, as much as I wanted to kick off, it was the truth. From that day, which is pretty much around the time we met, I ended up cancelling my ticket back to Miami. The only time I went back was to do the video for "One More Time". I haven't been back for the last six months now. It's not even on my radar! When you're not thinking about parties and beaches and the car... I don't even know what's happened to the car [laughs]. It's probably seized up or something.
I bet you can't wait to kick off your 16-date arena tour.
When I looked at the dates that I'm doing, I had to take a breather and stand back for a minute. I haven't been in arenas for time! For a good nine years, at least. I could pretend to tell you some story, but at the end of the day I've experienced loads of different venues, ups and downs of my career. Thankfully... What I said to Colin, who's managed me for 15 years, I said thank you to him the other day. It's very easy to manage someone when they're having success, but to manage me through periods where people are like, "Yeah, he had hits back in the day but nobody cares anymore", or even moments where you're getting offers for Celebrity Big Brother and I'm A Celebrity... and not selling me out—because the money was looking rosy!—it truly means a lot. It would've killed me inside to even think about doing those shows. It would've killed him inside. He was like, "Craig, I would never do that to you." I'd rather go off completely than do one of those shows. So, to see it come through to where it is now proves to me that sticking in there really does pay off. And the support from people has helped a lot too.
I FEEL LIKE MY LANE, RATHER THAN ME GOING TO IT, IT'S JUST FALLEN BACK INTO WHAT I WAS ALWAYS DOING..
I'm not trying to gas you, JP, but that last piece you did on Complex and the things that you said, what it did was it allowed people that maybe had me down as a guilty pleasure to look at me differently. It made them feel like if the editor of Complex, that as a magazine represents the forefront of the cool music that's out there, is saying this is real then it is real. Right there, it goes from being a guilty pleasure to people thinking that I'm cool. So I need to say thank you to you as well, because it was every interview, every article that happened, all of this that allowed people to say: "You know what? 'Rewind' was a seminal dance record" or "'Fill Me In' was our tune!" So I appreciate that, man. I feel even more hungry now than when I first started off. But also, I'm even more grateful because I've seen people stand up and say things that were above and beyond the call of duty. One being yourself, and other people that have come out in magazines like Noisey and those places. Even Lorraine Kelly! Just to flip it back to the mainstream, she's someone who's had my back from time. I'm just overwhelmed with how well it's all gone.
And how it's still going!
Thank you, my brother.
Craig David's 'Following My Intuition' LP hit stores on Sept. 30
