SMOOTH OPERATOR

Introducing Craig David MBE, the velvet-voiced English singer-songwriter, DJ, and vibe-enricher, featured in our pages for the first time ever.

- INDRAN PARAMASIVAM

LET ME PAINT YOU A PICTURE, dear reader. It is Valentine’s Day, 2019. My date— with whom I had only recently gotten acquainted—and I are at Craig David’s TS5 show at Zouk. The main room is beyond packed. But from our second-floor vantage, we have a fantastic view of him. The man is directly in my line of sight. Without assistance from backup dancers, singers, or musicians, he DJed, crooned and rapped over a spectrum-blasting palate of sounds. Without the assistance of tequila, I was awed as much by the earthy power of his performance as I was entranced by the ethereality of the ease with which he unspooled it.

At the end of the evening, my date revealed that she wasn’t pleased that I had ignored her throughout his performance. It was the last time we would see each other.

But the show—it stuck with me. Six years on, as I regard him through a Zoom window on my screen, Craig David still radiates the same winkingly dashing aura that has permeated his lexiconuplifting catalogue, including his legacyigniting debut album Born To Do It, which turns 25 this year. He chats with me about all that and his excellent new single ‘SOS’.

A massive tour is about to begin for you. In this stage of your career, what does hitting the road mean to you?

I think I’ve reached a point where I have the full bandwidth to do different kinds of performances, whether they are the DJ-centric TS5 parties or a full-band show. As an artist, that’s a blessing. If I decide that a show needs a DJ, I can deliver that. If it needs live drums and guitar, I can deliver that too—and I love that I can.

In ‘SOS’, you highlight your timeless brand of chameleonic musicality.