Craig David Opens Up About His Painful Rise, Fall & Redemption | E135

Steven Bartlett 0:00 Could you do me a quick favor if you're listening to this? Please hit the follow or subscribe button. It helps more than you know. And we invite subscribers in every month to watch the show in person.

Craig David 0:08 Making moves, yeah, on the dance floor. Re-ewind. When the crowd say who? Craig David. This means so, so much to me. Everything I touched was turning to gold. Everyone wanted a piece of me and...

Steven Bartlett 0:19 How does an 18, 19-year-old deal with that?

Craig David 0:22 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 to tick boxes. When I started to do Abandon Myself and I started to do things that just weren't in alignment, it was a point where I had dark thoughts. I was just like, "I can't live my life like this." 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?

Steven Bartlett 0:53 So 22 years later, if you could whisper in the ear of your 14-year-old self, what would you whisper?

Craig David 1:00 Listen, Craig.

Steven Bartlett 1:02 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.

Steven Bartlett 1:17 Craig, I've got some lyrics that I wanted to recite to you, okay?

Craig David 1:22 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 1:22 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've 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.

Craig David 1:51 Yeah. That was a, that was a, that was a song that I had to... It was the first time I think kinda opening up and, and expressing a experience that I felt that I had maybe on a lesser degree to a lot of other people in my school. I think at school, like, in my, my secondary school, I've had a, a very... I had a beautiful upbringing. I, I enjoyed life. I was a playful kid and I loved music. Um, but secondary school, all-boys school. Went to Bellmore in 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, "Yo, you got two pound on you," "No, I haven't got two pound," and push you up against the wall, "You got two pound on you." Like, 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 kinda... 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 only happened with one, one, one guy in, in, at 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." This is the thing with bullying, is that I agree with... It, it needs to be spoken to someone you can confide in. But sometimes that kind of very rush in, you've told the teacher, they rush in, they... It's all out in the open. I was seeing kids who would then have a 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.

Steven Bartlett 3:52 Hmm.

Craig David 3:52 So the whole world is now outside of school, you, you finish at 3:00 PM, and now it's, it's beginning for you. So it was... I felt deeply that I needed to write on that. Um, and like I said, my, my mum and dad had their own things going on, um, in their lives. And, and I spoke to my mum, I, I wrote the song when I was in Southampton. I've got like a studio when I was down there, and I played it to her, 'cause 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 want to say something to the closest person in your life, be it your family, so your, your mother or your father. Um, 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've always... If I needed to speak to you, you would've been there." 'Cause I do say, "You got your problems of your own and I've tried to tell you so many times and you're not listening." And that is the case, and 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 a journey. My grandma had, had passed away at the same time. Um, it was... 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. It was just let me tell stories, anecdotes. And I do it through music, so.

Steven Bartlett 5:13 And you were bullied for your weight back then as well, right?

Craig David 5:16 Yeah. The, well, the weight one was... (laughs) 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'll, you'll, you'll tell it like, "No, you know, I was..." And I like, I like everything about this as well. Your podcast for me has always, and I wanted to tell you off the bat.

Steven Bartlett 5:32 Hmm.

Craig David 5:33 What I love about you is that you're bringing out so much, so much depth in people.

Steven Bartlett 5:37 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 5:37 And you already know how much love I got for you anyway.

Steven Bartlett 5:39 Mm-hmm. Appreciate it.

Craig David 5:41 The, the being overweight thing, now I see it as actually, in hindsight, it actually... (laughs) It brought out so many things, wonderful things that I had to kind of, that had been repressed for a long period of time. But at the time, the social standard was you need to look a certain way, um, the, the captain of the school football team tended to be the one that, that the girls were interested in.

Steven Bartlett 6:03 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 6:03 You were the, you were the slightly overweight one that they-... they, they cry on your shoulder, tell you all your problems, have this real... you have a real empathic, uh, relationship.

Steven Bartlett 6:12 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 6:12 You'd be like, "What? This is connection. This is a real relationship," but we didn't want to 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, um, imprint of what society ex- expects of you, and then you start trying to conform to that. So there were periods where I'd look in, in... walking down, uh, 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, the jacket's not, and you're getting bigger sizes, and then you're just feeling like I'm doing all the fi-... I'm doing... I, I could run. I had so-... I had, had some legs on me, you know? And, and probably s-... boys at school would be like, "Bro, you weren't a... you weren't a very fast runner. Which part do you run it..." But I'll tell the story. I'm on a mic now.

Steven Bartlett 6:58 (laughs)

Craig David 6:59 Um, I was... 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 st-... I was like 15 and, like, I think my weight had, was starting to get to... no, I was 14 and my weight had got to 14 and a half stone, so I was starting to get over my age in weight.

Steven Bartlett 7:18 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 7:18 And I was, and I was like, "Maybe I need to slightly rein this in a little bit, health-wise."

Steven Bartlett 7:23 Mm-hmm. I ask these questions because-

Craig David 7:25 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 7:25 ... and I always start with childhood on this podcast and I, 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-

Craig David 7:40 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 7:41 ... ended up being, like, the, the biggest drivers in my life.

Craig David 7:44 Amen.

Steven Bartlett 7:44 So when I sit here and trying to find out why, you know, you got really into fitness-

Craig David 7:48 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 7:49 ... 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?

Craig David 7:57 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 7:57 And, and those tend to be the pathway to people's, you know, people's greatness in a weird way.

Craig David 8:02 100%. Like, it, it all... your, your... you've got this, this period where your heart's open, you wanna... you're experiencing life, you're a chi-... like as you said-

Steven Bartlett 8:10 You have a puppy.

Craig David 8:10 ... you're a child, you're a puppy, you... like, you just... you don't know, and then all of a sudden you get the, "Oh, is that... Oh, that... Oh, I can't do that. Oh, that's the way to go." And then you're, you're, you're getting all the... like, you're imprinting all these patterns that only later you start to realize in, in your m-... in your... not even saying teenage years 'cause I think it's still in adolescent years at that point, but when y-... may- maybe in your 20s, you start to unpack things. You're s-... if you're, if you're conscious, you're starting to recognize that this doesn't seem to line up with my truth.

Steven Bartlett 8:36 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 8:36 And then when you're into your 30s, 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. 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-

Steven Bartlett 8:59 Oh, shit.

Craig David 8:59 Yeah, yeah. I was-

Steven Bartlett 9:00 Did work after that?

Craig David 9:00 ... early days entrepreneur. Early days, yeah? You'd find the, the, the chocolate that was, like, had about two weeks left before it was out of date and you'd... I'd work that in my, in my lessons. Like, listen, I knew I had, like, from 9:00 till 11:00 before there was a... there was a tuck shop break, so I could just set the tone as to how much I wanna sell it for. "What? You want a, a Mars bar for...?" "Yeah, it's £1.50." "Well, we don't have £1.50." "Okay, brother. Then wait till 11:00 then."

Steven Bartlett 9:23 (laughs)

Craig David 9:23 "You can go... you can get it for 35p," whatever it is. "Oh, bro. Like, I've got a pound, innit?" "Yeah, okay. Cool, a pound."

Steven Bartlett 9:28 (laughs)

Craig David 9:29 So, the leverage was incredible, right? So I always had a, an affiliation, and one of my favorite movies is Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, so I think that set the tone anyway. I've got a bit of Augustus Gloop in me. I've got the... I think we've... all the myriad of characters in that movie is me and ultimately Charlie. Like, do you know what I mean?

Steven Bartlett 9:44 (laughs)

Craig David 9:44 Um, (laughs) 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 at 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 the crazy thing with it is that when I got into the m- music, when I started... Rewind started blowing up, it was... people just wanted to hear me sing.

Steven Bartlett 10:14 Yeah.

Craig David 10:14 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.

Steven Bartlett 10:23 (laughs)

Craig David 10:23 So just know that, otherwise your stomach's gonna fall out. So if that's... that's the saving grace for everyone. Don't worry about the fat content and your fat percen-... there's a six-pack underneath everyone, so walk out on the street and feel confident with that.

Steven Bartlett 10:32 That's great. I'm gonna start telling people that. Um, you, you talked i- in those lyrics but then also then you talked-

Craig David 10:37 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:37 ... about your parents.

Craig David 10:38 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:39 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.

Craig David 10:44 Of course.

Steven Bartlett 10:44 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 at... in your school life.

Craig David 10:55 Yeah. I mean, my mum and dad broke up, uh, got divorced when I was eight. Um, but the beautiful thing is that my... like, my, my dad always would come pick me up on the weekends on a... or on a S- Sunday, and he would either be going to, like, Paultons Park, like, um, g- go-karting or I'd be helping him fix a kitchen, um, which I got... I would always say to my dad, like, "Dad, like, why is this man having to f- fix a kitchen?"

Steven Bartlett 11:18 Yeah. (laughs)

Craig David 11:19 Like, could, like, could we...? And I just, I remember the, the tools and the... it was dry and dusty. I'm thinking, "What...?" But I loved those times with my dad. Yeah, he really made an effort. And our drives in his car playing reggae music heavily influenced everything that I was going through. And for my mum, it was like she was working 9:00 to 5:00, um, 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. So, I had a lot of feminine energy in my life, which, um, I'm really grateful for 'cause it set the tone for how I wrote a lot of my songs. Even 7 Days. I mean, I'm saying, "Making love." At s- at 17 years old writing a song, who's saying, "Making love-"

Steven Bartlett 11:57 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig David 11:58 "... on Wednesday"? I mean, you listen to the songs now, it'd be... they're not using that kind of language. But it was that... I got... there's a respect I had for my, for my mother, for my grandmother.And the fact that even for my dad, I didn't want... I'm cussing out on record with my dad, but just would be like, "Yo, we need to, like, speak about this."

Steven Bartlett 12:14 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 12:14 So I just was... 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 f- um, feminine energy and female, uh, love and attention and care and all the things that you love from your mom and your grandma. And then my dad was just like, always had my back and I've got you, but I've never s- I've never seen them together. So I think again, looking at childhood, um, imprints and patterns as how they affect you later on, 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-

Steven Bartlett 12:50 Yeah.

Craig David 12:50 ...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?

Steven Bartlett 13:04 Yeah, absolutely.

Craig David 13:04 There's got... There's a point at which 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..."

Steven Bartlett 13:13 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 13:13 "I'll, I'll present you with the books, I can present you with the click on the right podcast to go to."

Steven Bartlett 13:17 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 13:17 "I'll get you two... We can unpack this." Someone will inspire you to do that.

Steven Bartlett 13:21 Exactly.

Craig David 13:21 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 just, I didn't... I... My heart was closed o- from the basis that not only from the family modeling, but also your, your first break, heartbreak. So for me it was like I... My heart was so open, um, and I had that first heartbreak and it just went from a kid who has had his heart open and thought, "This is it and you're into me and it's going to..." And then all of a sudden it just crashed and I was like, "Whoa," that feeling. And I'd n- I'd never felt anything like that before where I was like, I, I didn't know who to turn to. It was like I felt that after, after early childhood sweetheart breakup, my, my heart had kind of closed down and I f- and I feel sorry for the, the, the girls and, and women in the last stage of my life who've tried to open my heart up. And that's all they were trying to do. There, there's, there's... There was things that went a bit toxic and, and went... But I, I have to own those situations. I think a lot of guys it's like, "Yeah, well, she's... the, 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 s- there's a... there's an energy exchange between two people and you can play it off as like, "No, but we had an unwritten agreement-"

Steven Bartlett 14:43 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 14:43 "...where it was like no strings attached," and you can play that game as much as you want. Get enough karma, you'll start to see there's... There'll be some- someone who will be your teacher at some point. And I thank every woman in, in my life that I've had relations with, I thank you for teaching me in some way. And I want, 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, the early times with music and everything going on. Man, there were, there were people who were trying to get to my heart and I was just like, "Nope, got this thing, it's easier to keep it arm's length," and it just doesn't work like that.

Steven Bartlett 15:16 So

Steven Bartlett 15:17 two questions on that then.

Craig David 15:18 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 15:18 What was the evidence or the story-

Craig David 15:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 15:21 ...that your parent... your parents' relationship taught you or left you with-

Craig David 15:26 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 15:26 ...for better or for worse? And then that first heartbreak, what were the two stories those two incidents told you-

Craig David 15:31 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 15:31 ...about relationships?

Craig David 15:32 So having no modeling of what real relationship is, it, it showed me early from, from mom 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, um, 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. Um, 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, uh, 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's been relationships. I'm not gonna be that... the guy saying, "I've, I've, I've never met a girl-"

Steven Bartlett 16:30 Yeah.

Craig David 16:30 "...who's in something." And they tell you a story that is, "Ah, 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."

Steven Bartlett 16:38 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig David 16:39 "Just don't get involved in all this because you... your heart will be protected and life is good and we can keep it arm's 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 to... Psychologically 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, "Oh, wow, 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 week, week and a half, yeah, the break, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 17:10 Really?

Craig David 17:11 It wasn't... It was... So this is what I'm talking early, early days.

Steven Bartlett 17:13 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 17:13 But when your heart is fully open-

Steven Bartlett 17:15 Yeah.

Craig David 17:16 ...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 when 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. The same feeling that I think we both share when you said that you had your moments of the trigger points and you, like-

Steven Bartlett 17:55 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 17:56 ...had to open up again and you met someone who met you at a place to help you through that, which is even better when you meet someone who's conscious and gets it and says-

Steven Bartlett 18:03 Yeah.

Craig David 18:03 "...I've got you." I... And baby steps if we need to, but I'm with you, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 18:06 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 18:07 I'm at that place now where I'm like, "Ah, my heart's open."

Steven Bartlett 18:10 Do you think your heart's open?

Craig David 18:11 My heart's open, man.

Steven Bartlett 18:12 Yeah.

Craig David 18:12 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 in f- a few years back. The journey has kind of rapidly kind of entered into a phase where I just know that that's th- the, the truth of the matter.

Steven Bartlett 18:32 And where are you relationship-wise?

Craig David 18:34 Single at the moment.

Steven Bartlett 18:34 Single.

Craig David 18:35 Which is, (sighs) again, you have... Especially as a, as a guy and I can only really kind of speak on my experiences and, and w- we tend to... (smacks lips) 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 a 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 ha- changed long t- 10 years ago for me, the, the, 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, of a look and how someone's got to be?" And, 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 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.

Steven Bartlett 19:38 Hmm.

Craig David 19:38 Laugh is one of the biggest values of m- of, of any relationship.

Steven Bartlett 19:40 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 19:40 If someone makes me laugh, cry uncontrollably, you've always got half of my heart already, yeah?

Steven Bartlett 19:44 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 19:45 Because that's gonna 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.

Steven Bartlett 20:01 Hmm.

Craig David 20:01 That hangover, right then that's when you're gonna ask yourself, am I really in love? The romantic thing, that's just a bit of sweetness and...

Steven Bartlett 20:08 Have, have you had a long-term relationship?

Craig David 20:13 (sighs) Uh, n- see, it would sound j- so short for so many people. For me, it felt long. Two and a half years was probably-

Steven Bartlett 20:18 Hmm.

Craig David 20:18 ... my longest relationship. And-

Steven Bartlett 20:20 Oh, same as me.

Craig David 20:21 And e- and even then, like, I don't feel like I opened my heart. I, I f- I really felt that the girl 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, look at back and you say, "Thank you 'cause you taught me so much about how I was moving and how I was going on, and I'm a better man for that, 'cause now I can open up my heart like this." 'Cause a lot of guys don't want to talk like that. They want to keep it cool.

Steven Bartlett 20:47 Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig David 20:48 They don't wanna... They don't talk, so...

Steven Bartlett 20:49 One of the other things, talking about things that kind of invalidated us when we were younger or that we were aspiring to, I, I saw this quote and I actually saw a picture of the estate you lived on.

Craig David 20:57 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 20:57 And it's, um, I'm gonna say, it's not the estate that I would wish to have lived on.

Craig David 21:02 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 21:02 I don't want to criticize, you know, an area, but it's not... It, it didn't look... I saw like a gray apart- apartment block and it-

Craig David 21:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 21:09 ... it looked like a- Quite, you know...

Craig David 21:12 ... council state vibes there.

Steven Bartlett 21:12 It was a council estate, yeah. Um, 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.

Craig David 21:21 Huh. Do, do you know what? I think to correct the quote even more-

Steven Bartlett 21:24 Okay, please, yeah.

Craig David 21:25 Yeah, because the jacuzzi one, like... (smacks lips) It's funny 'cause I was talking about this only yesterday about like, when I was speaking about Fill Me In and I was like, yeah, I was like, jumped in the jacuzzi. And I was thinking, what jacuzzi was I actually jumping in? Because last time I checked, you were in a, a two bedroom flat with your mum, yeah? So the only jacuzzi you were jumping in was your bath, yeah?

Steven Bartlett 21:41 Yeah. (laughs)

Craig David 21:41 So that's, let's put that on record. And you were in a four by four, yeah?

Steven Bartlett 21:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig David 21:43 Okay, cool. So which driving license did you have at that point? 'Cause you were only like 15, 16 when you were writing that song. It was aspirations.

Steven Bartlett 21:51 Aspirations.

Craig David 21:51 By looking out of that window, overlooking that car park, what my grandmother brought to the, to the table in terms of like... I mean, the love that... My mum and... Just from my family, I'm just very grateful for that upbringing. But my grandma, as grandmas do, wanna make sure you, you get the right food in, in you, make sure you wear the jacket. You know what I mean? 'Cause it's gonna get cold, it's gonna rain later on. And you're like, "Grandma," and then it rains. They just have this wisdom, yeah?

Steven Bartlett 22:14 Hmm.

Craig David 22:15 But she had a beautiful little garden w- 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 would, was, was enough as an inspiration to say, "If I could have a house with a garden in Southampton, we're good here." I mean, little did I know that, th- how it would cascade from the music into... Yeah, just that, that times 10 in terms of just-

Steven Bartlett 22:40 Yeah.

Craig David 22:40 ... like my eyes being opened, but it was that inspiration from my grandma. And I looked at the car park and it was like, ca- it, it, it kept me on my grind, I kept me on my grind. That 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, uh, chocolates at school.

Steven Bartlett 23:02 (laughs)

Craig David 23:02 Already had that going on. I was already doing mixtapes. 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, I was... Everything I kind of am doing now, weirdly enough, is no different than what I was doing when I was a kid. I literally had my wh- whole little factory of making tunes, trying to have a little business going on so I can make ends meet in my own way without having to try and pull money from my mum 'cause 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 got the Sega Mega Drive, right? It was Sonic the Hedgehog and those m- those games. Yeah, that's what brought my memories first. Look...

Steven Bartlett 23:51 (laughs)

Craig David 23:51 Yeah, you got the... But when I think back, there was my, um, wherever my money was get... Wherever my mum was getting this money from, like, she was deeply in debt. So when you look back, you say, "Mom, the love I have for you, like 9:00 to 5:00, 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 support... He would, he would never... No one could cross me. No one, no one could do anything bad to me, 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 things, so how, where's that part? So you're having to understand I've got so much

Craig David 24:28 feminine energy in me and that part, but I need the-

Steven Bartlett 24:31 Hmm.

Craig David 24:31 ... speaking of truth, action now. So it's-

Steven Bartlett 24:34 The yang.

Craig David 24:35 It's, uh, the yang, my man.

Steven Bartlett 24:36 Yeah, yeah.

Craig David 24:36 The yang.

Steven Bartlett 24:37 Yeah.

Craig David 24:38 The yang.

Steven Bartlett 24:38 So you talk about music there, and, uh, one of the things that was really remarkable reading through your story is how early music came into your world-

Craig David 24:44 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 24:44 ... and how early you started, like, selling mix tapes and... I sat here with, I've sat here with many mu- musicians, and it tends, tended to happen a little bit later in life. Even Diplo sat here last week and-

Craig David 24:54 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 24:54 ... with Diplo it was, I don't know, he was 25 or something before he really started going in music.

Craig David 24:58 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:58 But you were, you were young.

Craig David 24:59 Mmm.

Steven Bartlett 25:00 I know your dad had an influence in that because he was very into reggae-

Craig David 25:02 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:03 ... and he was in a reggae band, right?

Craig David 25:04 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 25:04 But where did music show up in your life? And then, and how did that obsession kinda, like, take hold?

Craig David 25:10 Um, (sighs) I mean, it was earl- (gasps) like I said when I, earlier on when I said, like, y- your little high-five when you come into the world, I feel that and y- 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 honor that, you just go in the direction. So I was always intrigued by the little hi-fi setup my mum had at the, in the flat with the big box of records, and I'd just be flicking through them. Um, and I, and there was a, a vinyl in there that was Ebony Rockers, which is my dad's reggae group, which more recently there's a mural now in Southampton they put on, on Algo Road, huge mural that says about Ebony Rockers and I'm thinking-

Steven Bartlett 25:53 Wow.

Craig David 25:53 ... "Wow," so proud of my dad. I was like, "Yes, Dad," 'cause you are a musician in your heart, bass guitar player. The, the, the group were talking about, um, social issues that were going on in the '70s, '80s, and being able to put that on record and talk about injustices that were going on in their lives in Southampton and have it on record, but now you're getting recognized for that. Oh man, like I just love, love my dad for that. It's like I'm just so happy for him. So I was looking at records and I pulled out his record and I'd be like, "Ebony Rockers." And my mom would say, "Yeah, that's your dad's group." And I'd be like, "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 it's definitely there's some lineage there, there's, there's DNA that comes through musically. My mum was always into Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. Uh, my first ever seven-inch I ever bought was, uh, it was Human Nature.

Steven Bartlett 26:44 Oh, really? What? Michael Jackson?

Craig David 26:46 Yeah. 'Cause it, it was on a seven-inch. It was in a li- it was a small little box next to the, the 12-inch.

Steven Bartlett 26:53 (laughs)

Craig David 26:53 Um, it was the first one I bought. That's what, let me tell you, tell you it, right. It was the first one I bought, first song I ever bought. So that's why, and the, I mean, look at the lyric of the song.

Steven Bartlett 27:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig David 27:01 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 got, I had a, uh, and then there was, there was the bit of Donny Osmond in there 'cause my mum was a big fan of The Osmonds which was a big group back in the day.

Steven Bartlett 27:15 (laughs)

Craig David 27:15 Um, mixed with the Stevies and the Michaels and, and, and then I also had my dad's reggae, deep reggae from Beres Hammond to Sanchez, uh, Terror Fabulous, Buju Banton, Beenie 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 Buju Banton but no one's actually see, like, hearing you do this." Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 27:37 (laughs)

Craig David 27:38 Because I go into this reggae Kilimanjaro, David Rodigan, uh, Black Cat sound system in me. So when I hear, see carnival, I'm just like-

Steven Bartlett 27:47 (laughs) Yeah.

Craig David 27:48 ... it's me sitting up and posted up with a little bit of rice and chicken-

Steven Bartlett 27:52 (laughs)

Craig David 27:52 ... and a, a little Budweiser by a speaker and I'm good. I'm good. Yeah. So yeah, man, that music was, started off early and then I just, I just felt like it, I just was gravitating towards it

Steven Bartlett 28:00 When was the first time you made music in any kind of contest?

Craig David 28:05 Um, first time I made music was, my dad got me a, a hi-fi system called Studio 100. 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 just came to the house said, "Craig, I got you this Studio 100." 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 colored, um, foam capsules on the top. It looked th- the business with a v- with, uh, a record deck on top, two twin cassette decks and lots of switches that I didn't understand what was going on, but I was excited 'cause 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 11; 11, 12 years old when that came through. And I, you put a TDK cassette tape, um, there was a D90 was like the basic, uh, one or you, if you were feeling kinda saucy with it you have like a chrome or a-

Steven Bartlett 29:03 (laughs)

Craig David 29:03 ... or a metal. Uh, they were two Pound forty-nine those ones, but if you went for the normal D9 it was like a little 69p one. I put, I buy two of them, you 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.

Steven Bartlett 29:21 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 29:22 I didn't un- I didn't quite get the memo of, oh, what? We have to change the melody that much for it to not be sounding like I'm singing Jodeci Freaking You or Boyz II Men. Why does it sound like you literally just changed like the, the road to street on End of the Road?

Steven Bartlett 29:35 (laughs)

Craig David 29:35 You have to do a bit more than that which I kind of, you learn quickly if you don't get the memo. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:40 (laughs)

Craig David 29:40 Um, but yeah, so I started to bounce the, the vocals down. So you, you sing onto one cassette, you put that in the bottom, uh, tape cassette. You then put in fresh one in the top and you'd 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.

Steven Bartlett 29:55 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 29:55 'Cause this is old school stuff. But I was starting to finish, uh, a song and I was feeling very, very proud of myself that I could actually write a song.

Steven Bartlett 30:04 How old?

Craig David 30:05 I would've been like, yeah, like 11, 12 years old.

Steven Bartlett 30:08 11, 12 years old?

Craig David 30:09 Mm-hmm. But yeah, that kind of led into a world very nourished with R&B, reggae, but also the, the pop soul element. Terrence Trent D'Arby was the first show I ever went to at the Guildhall in Southampton. It blew my mind.... 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 of, like, a Stevie Wonder with Michael Jackson. The Hard Line, according to album, was like, it was like seven, eight million albums. It was a huge record for him with the, the breakout song Sign Your Name Across My Heart. Again, look at the, the, the messages, "Sign your name across my heart," yeah.

Steven Bartlett 30:44 Hmm.

Craig David 30:45 I, I'm like, "Finally, we're getting the message now. I need to let someone sign it fully." You know what I mean? And capitals, hold that.

Steven Bartlett 30:53 (laughs)

Craig David 30:53 But changed my life. I was like, "If I can... I'd love to do what that guy does."

Steven Bartlett 30:57 From 11, 12, where you're messing around with those cassettes-

Craig David 31:00 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 31:00 ... to, I think, when I've, I've heard you kind, kind of recount it, your first break was winning that songwriting contest with Damage, wasn't it?

Craig David 31:07 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 31:08 Was that... Would you consider that to be your first kind of, like, break opportunity?

Craig David 31:12 (laughs) You know what? It, it's like... (sighs) It gave me, it gave me the first taste of, of, um, reinforcing that I could actually do this. Like, I thought it was a b- break, like I was gonna... We've done it here.

Steven Bartlett 31:25 Yeah, yeah.

Craig David 31:25 I've written the song, I'm Ready. It's on the back of, it's on the B-side of Wonderful Tonight, the Eric Clapton cover, which was the lead single. I'm telling everyone inside... It went to number two in the charts. I'm telling all my friends this because of obviously my song I'm Ready-

Steven Bartlett 31:38 Hmm.

Craig David 31:38 ... not the classic Wonderful Tonight that they've covered, right?

Steven Bartlett 31:41 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 31:42 Um, but I thought it was off the back of... And they... 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, it was like, okay, it was in the shops for a few weeks, but nothing. It went quiet after that.

Steven Bartlett 31:57 How old were you when you won that songwriting competition for the boy band, Damage? How old were you?

Craig David 32:01 I would've said I was 14 around that... 14, 15.

Steven Bartlett 32:05 Fuck. So you start messing around with music at about 11-ish, you said, right?

Craig David 32:08 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 32:08 And then at 14, you win the songwriting competition for the boy band, Damage.

Craig David 32:12 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 32:13 Um, and that's what, like, three years of just continuing to mess, mess around and develop and practice and just play around with music, right, between that time?

Craig David 32:20 Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was... And my... And again, the support of my mom and dad in, in, in ways that now I'm just, like, so thankful for of br- bringing that Studio 100 piece of equipment, that, for me to record, you know, my first record deck. All, all those things now, I was the kid looking through the music store like, "Oh, I wish I could have that. Wish I had that one... If I could get that one equalizer, it would... I could m- mix it."

Steven Bartlett 32:43 Hmm.

Craig David 32:43 I was just that nerdy with it. And they would always somehow have a 10 pound and a 20 pound ready for me to help me out. And I had my, my chocolate thing going on, so it was fun.

Steven Bartlett 32:51 Therе's some-something really intеresting 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 10 years before they blew up or whatever, they were just like really nerdy with music.

Craig David 33:09 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 33:09 There wasn't really an intention of being the greatest or getting the number one albums. They were just, like, obsessed. Even Wretch 32, when he sat here, it was the same thing.

Craig David 33:16 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 33:16 He was just... Clearly just nerdy with it-

Craig David 33:18 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 33:18 ... 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-

Craig David 33:24 Right.

Steven Bartlett 33:25 ... isn't... That doesn't appear to be, um... Or at l- at least the, the starting point doesn't appear to be this obsession with becoming a superstar.

Craig David 33:33 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 33:33 It's this kind of nerdy fascination, 'cause you spent three years between 11 and 14 just messing around with cassettes on some piece of hardware that your dad bought you.

Craig David 33:40 Yeah, of course. It's, it's... 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 a... 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, and I had everything in alphabetical order with the plastic, um, sl- 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-

Steven Bartlett 34:21 Hmm.

Craig David 34:21 ... where I'd swap shop with records. I'd be like, like, the other DJs would say, "I f- I got to London to 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, 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 the, he, he's got these 10 copies maybe, and there's a promo that's not gonna come out for six months. L- like, literally, songs were like, you had time, 'cause it was physical.

Steven Bartlett 34:51 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 34:51 Where are you gonna go? You can't copy this unless you got a lathe and you're gonna start to print acetates in your house. So you had to wait. So I'd... When you went out to London especially, 'cause this was like the hub for where everything was being made and printed up, I'd come back sometimes from Slamp- to Slampton with some record. DJs were going, "Where you get that crate? Where you get that?"

Steven Bartlett 35:09 (laughs)

Craig David 35:09 I said, "Yeah, you know." "Now I gotta 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 an old 10 pound extra for that." You could, you could... It was all vibes, man. I just... It was such a fun time, 'cause things were slower.

Steven Bartlett 35:25 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 35:25 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. (paper rustling)

Steven Bartlett 35:33 I had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast. My girlfriend came upstairs yesterday when I was having a shower, and she said to me that she tried the Huel protein shake, which lives on my fridge over there, and she said it's amazing. Low calories. You get your 20 odd grams of protein, you get your 26 vitamins and minerals, and it's nutritionally complete. In the protein space, there's lots of things, but it's hard to find something that is nice, especially when consumed just with water, and that is nutritionally complete, and that has about 100 gr- calories in total, while also giving you your 20 grams of protein. If you haven't tried the Huel protein product, do give it a try. The salted caramel one, if you put some ice cubes in it, and you put it in a blender, and you try it, is as good as pretty much any milkshake on the market, just mixed with water. It's been a game changer for me, because I'm trying to drop my calorie intake, and I'm trying to be a little bit more healthy with my diet. So-This is where Huel fits in my life. Thank you, Huel, for making a product that I actually like. The salted caramel is my favorite. I've got the banana one here, which is the one my girlfriend likes, but for me, salted caramel is the one.

Steven Bartlett 36:36 Between 14 and 18 then-

Craig David 36:38 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 36:38 ... what happens then for you?

Craig David 36:40 I'd gone from the, the songwriting competition, uh, a moment where it was like, "Okay, this is the, this is the, this is the thing," but then it carried on where, okay, this wasn't necessarily, yeah, the big breakthrough. Heavily into the v- into collecting records. I started to DJ early on. I was MC at first for, uh, 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, um, and he was 10 years older than me. And I, at that, at 14, I looked a little older as well so I, I can kinda get, I could style it to get into clubs with him and he let me be his MC. So I would be called MC Fade and I was just like, you know what I mean? The Fade was Chris and I just thought that was the-

Steven Bartlett 37:24 Hmm. Yeah.

Craig David 37:24 Uh, it's cra-... And then he give me like a, he gave me a little slot, uh, to, to play maybe a little 15 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 Cage & Zoo in Bournemouth.

Steven Bartlett 37:40 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 37:40 Um, we do a couple shows in, in Portsmouth. So I was like his, I was his MC 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 MP3 on it, it's different when you're picking up those boxes, right?

Steven Bartlett 37:55 (laughs)

Craig David 37:55 Your, your squat game's gotta be really on point. Your glutes will be f- will be fired up. But I'd always do this thing with him where I'd be like, "Flash, I think, I think I see that girl over there." I was trying to find like a girl he had his eyes on, and he'd be, he'd be watching her all through the night. 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 go, "D- don't worry, I got you! I'll, uh, let me, you go speak to her, man, 'cause she's gonna, she's gonna go and it's all gonna ... Okay, cool. Le- le- handle the fort." "I'll handle the fort. Don't you worry." So I played 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 'cause she was never looking at him at all for the whole thing, right?

Steven Bartlett 38:32 (laughs)

Craig David 38:32 I've got a 30-minute DJ set, and then he's coming back like, "Great. It's like she didn't even..." I goes, "I don't know. She was looking at you all the time. I'm not sure."

Steven Bartlett 38:39 (laughs)

Craig David 38:39 You gotta find your ways, yeah? But I learned from between th- that 14 to, to, to really to 16 was a period of DJing intensely. Then I started to go off and do my own DJing sets with MC Alistair, who is part of the Artful Dodger.

Steven Bartlett 38:54 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 38:54 He goes and does MC sets now. Um, and then it was kind of, it was moving. I was at college. I'd gone from secondary school, now I was at college, at City College. I was doing an NVQ Level 2 in electronics. It was like the closest thing I could get to music because there wasn't like, uh, production, uh, courses like they do now, which would've 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 wanna know how Timbaland makes that, or Rodney Jerkins makes the, the, the vocal sound so good. Could someone show me that?" 'Cause then there wasn't a course. So I thought, "Let me do electronics because at least that gets me closer to circuit boards."

Steven Bartlett 39:34 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 39:34 Richard Sounds was around the corner, had some wicked equipment in there. I thought even if I got a, a job working there, it would be great. I'd be near d- decks, 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 Deveraux from the Artful Dodger, which is where it, it really then transcended.

Steven Bartlett 39:57 Tell me about that.

Craig David 39:58 So in one club, it was called Old Orientals, um, 10 minutes around the corner from where I, my, I was living with my mum, um, was DJ-ing downstairs, uh, R&B, hip hop set. Upstairs was house and garage night. Um, Mark Hill and Pete Deveraux who, the original Artful Dodger, were playing upstairs. Now these are early doors for garage music, so you're hearing like, It's a London Thing was playing. Um, Scott Garcia, which was like a classic garage tune from them days. And it was even like the, the Lessons In Love was coming through Robbie Craig, and there was just tunes playing. And I'd always go pop my head up and be like, it wasn't packed up there, but I was just like, "Th- this is, this is a vibe." It's got like, it's like this r- they're layering R&B stuff now, it felt, over this skippy, well, like, what do you call it? Is, I didn't know what two-step was. It was like, is this beat garage? It was this 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 where I didn't have a producer or someone who could create the music for me. Um, I was using instrumentals and stuff to just sing over, like you'd hear a freestyle. And then literally the, the, I mean, this is why it's so divine, like, the serendipity of it was so beautiful. Mark Hill, who ended up producing the whole of the Born To Do It album, said, "I've been looking for someone who writes songs. Like, I, I do music, like, I've got the music thing locked down, but I need somebody who, who writes songs you can sing." And I was like, "Oh, this is a perfect marriage." And he says, "Oh, 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 be making this up." Like, it's, it was the cl- like, my, my flat, the o- the Old Orientals place that we met, the studio was literally within a 10-minute walk. It was like all perfectly planned. And then from that, the next thing I did was record a song called, uh, What You Gonna Do? Which was the first release from Artful Dodger. And I remember it being printed up on a, on, 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.

Steven Bartlett 42:02 (laughs)

Craig David 42:02 I was on vinyl, yeah?

Steven Bartlett 42:04 (laughs)

Craig David 42:04 And it 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, in Soho Records there, in Brixton we've got some-" I was like... And something started to build, my man. I, 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 b- come back down from London saying, "I'm hearing your tune getting played on power radio stations, you know." I'm like, "What?"I'm hearing, like, it's going off, (singing) drop the funk, drop the bass, hit it. And I'm like, "What are you f- " And I like... and, but then random people were saying, "Oh, when I, I was coming back from London, it's ge- it's getting played. Like, I went to a, a club, it went off. The DJ spun 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 wanna come up to London, start doing some, some PAs, some per- some performances for this song?" I said, "I'd love to." So I call up my mate, Clinton, in his yellow Fiesta, remember it clearly, got the 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 Notting Hill Carnival, you know, the sound system was way more than the car, right? It sounded crisp. So we're up there, I had to slip him, like, £50 to, to get me up there, get me back. And literally I go up, I was getting like two f- 250, £300 for a, 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 go to the Coliseum, um, in Vauxhall, um, The End, um, and I started, Twice as Nice was the, the big, big name at the time. And I go out there and sing Whatcha Gonna Do, and I'd, I'd go on stage and I was this young 15-year-old kid, I was 16 at the time, walked out and I had the, the DJ... It was more like a, there was... any DJ could play 'cause the Artful Dodger, we had this sort of agreement that if Artful Dodger were with me performing, we're doing a set together, we'd sort of half the amount for the, for the, for the fee. And if I was going off doing a performance, then I would just take the money, and if they did a, a DJ set somewhere, they'd take it. So we just had a nice little agreement going on. So I go up there and the DJ would just say, "You ready? You ready?" Okay, yeah, I'm ready, I'm ready. And he'd be like (singing) drop the funk, drop the bass, hit it. 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 is ne- spinning it up and everyone's going (singing) which is where, led to Bo' Selecta with Rewind, why I was saying that in the song, it's like, bo, bo, Bo' Selecta. That was the phrase as a cultural reference for that music. And I think that that's where it kind of just, it, it just, it just was exponential after that. It just went from Whatcha 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 per- PA of that song, I wasn't sure if the crowd were feeling it because it goes into this h- this bass line in the chorus which is very... it feels like a halftime R&B record. Let me hear it. It goes like... so it's like (singing) so it's like, re-e-wind. When a crowd say Bo' Selecta, re-e-wind. You just got the baseline (singing) it's halftime, you could just be a slow jam. (singing) And people... 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. (laughs) Like, 'cause the ver- the verse is (singing) making moves, yeah, on the dance floor. You got the garage things, cool, and then it goes (singing) and people were like... and then when it... and that was its USP in the end. Mm-hmm. People were like, "There's that tune that does that halftime, I don't know what, baseline thing, but it goes slowed..." and it set the tone for the whole thing. That song right there still is like my baby, 'cause I felt it when I walked home with my Sony Walkman, with my headphones on, on my Jack Jones, just like walking back, like, just listening to it, thinking, "I don't need..." there's certain songs where I don't need any feedback, I don't need others to tell me what they think about it, how they feel. I know in my soul this here is the one. And it wasn't the one from, "It's gonna go off in a club." This is 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 don't... I'm good." I'd 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 it ended up being

Steven Bartlett 46:37 And that is a, a timeless, timeless record. I mean, I listened to it before you came in here.

Craig David 46:42 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 46:42 So I was listening to it, and I was like, "Fuck, it... this could have come out last week." Do you know what I mean?

Craig David 46:45 Far out.

Steven Bartlett 46:45 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." Do you know what I mean? So-

Craig David 46:50 Bruh, I appreciate you.

Steven Bartlett 46:51 You know what I mean, though? Like-

Craig David 46:51 Hundreds.

Steven Bartlett 46:52 Yeah, yeah.

Craig David 46:53 It's that, it's that c- it's a, 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 yester- last night, and I drop it in, and millennials are going crazy for it, the day ones are there going back, okay, it's just that, it's j- it's one of those ones.

Steven Bartlett 47:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig David 47:11 You know what I mean? So-

Steven Bartlett 47:11 Yeah. So that leads me up to the, to the point where you start to release your first solo single.

Craig David 47:16 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 47:16 Fill Me In.

Craig David 47:17 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 47:17 Talk to me about that and that whole process, because that went straight to number one.

Craig David 47:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 47:21 Um, from what you 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 something-

Craig David 47:29 Yeah, it was-

Steven Bartlett 47:29 ... crazy, crazy, in a, in the space of a couple of months as well.

Craig David 47:32 Yeah. It, it, I mean, it went, like, from, like, zero to 100, the, literally. That's why it was kind of like... behind the scenes, funny enough, even though I say zero to 100, there was a lot of learning curve that I was learning. So do- 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, the vinyl's skipping and the crowd are looking at you like, "Yo, what?" And, and you've got to improvise quickly, so man's going into some kind of MC, like, "Someone I met, someone I'm a love this, someone I'm gonna hold the mic, I'm hopeless," trying to find another bit of vinyl to put on 'cause this one's gonna keep skipping. "I'm hopeless, hopeless, when I arrive buh buh buh like this, jump around in my Adidas." Okay, and everyone's just like, "Whoa," and then, and then I get it to mix somehow perfectly, yeah? A- and I'm sweating, yeah, 'cause I'm thinking, "I nearly mashed the whole thing up." And after, people come up saying, "Craig, that was sick when you did that thing. How did you do that? Why are you sweating so much?" (laughs) I was like, "It's not even hot in here. The air conditioning's blasting." I was like, "If only you knew." But it, 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? Like, you can get... That was always, using the name was always like a, it's like a tag, a DJ tag thing. Like, you, you put your name, DJ Khaled would do it. It'd be like... I'd be like, "Craig David all over your..." So you knew who was on the record, just in case 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 would just be like, "Craig David. It's another one." Like, all that, all that kind of stuff. Um, but, yeah, I remember doing this, a performance. I'd, I'd had an interview in Capital FM and I had to get across Leicester Square to go and do this, uh, performance of it in 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 there 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 because there were fans going crazy. Like, real... I could... For, for a moment in that period of time, the Justin Bieber thing, the... Even before the Drakes. I mean, it was like, it was that fever p- pitch where it was just like, whoa, BTS flex. It was like madness, like pandemonium. I, I was 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, as Destiny's Child Say My Name, so to have a number one in the charts with a group that I'd grown up with posters on my wall and, like, thinking, "This is crazy." Say My Name is one of my favorite R&B songs of 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, 'cause 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 clever, uh, move from... At the time, my record label, um, was half owned by my now manager, Colin Lester. Uh, Telstar and Capital were involved. And it was just like, we wanted to find ways that just didn't, um, exclude me from other radio stations and made it feel like it wasn't just this radio thing. So we did performances like on TFI Fridays and on Jools Holland, which were acoustic. And all of a sudden I went from the rise in garage, quote unquote style, to, "Wow, there's actually a song here."

Steven Bartlett 51:37 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 51:37 He's writing songs. And then the next song was I think kind of reinforced that it wasn't just garage, and then from Seven Days and then to get to Walking Away-

Steven Bartlett 51:45 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 51:45 ...because Walking Away, it'd gone clear at that point. Really had gone clear, like we were... I was in France nearly every other week, in Paris doing radio interviews, and I'd be in, in, doing the 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-

Steven Bartlett 52:02 How old were you through this period? So you start... I mean, Fill Me In was when you were 18, wasn't it?

Craig David 52:06 Yeah, so... Yeah, so with... And the album dropped the same year, so 2001 was when I went over to the States, so it would have been, like, '19, like...

Steven Bartlett 52:14 How does, how does an 18, 19-year-old deal with that? 'Cause, you know, with all the attention comes a lot of negative stuff.

Craig David 52:20 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 52:20 It's, like, unavoidable. It comes with the territory. Even with the, like, the fame and people clambering on you and stuff-

Craig David 52:27 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 52:27 ...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-

Craig David 52:34 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 52:34 ...all your demons, right? Because 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.

Craig David 52:41 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 52:41 That meteoric rise.

Craig David 52:44 I'd say channeling in of how I... Or tuning in to how I was at that time, I'd 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 tell this because it kind of... Just to give context to how bizarre it was. So remember, I've come from, "Yo, Flash, I think that girl likes you 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. First night, Missy Elliott is, has come to watch the show. I'm looking up thinking, "This is crazy." Like...

Steven Bartlett 53:33 Wow.

Craig David 53:33 "I Can't Stand the Rain" and then Missy Elliott, just the whole... Next night, I'm there, I look up in the same balcony, Jennifer Lopez is there. I'm like, "Wow." And I don't want it to sound like I'm name-dropping but I want it to be... To give context. It's just...

Steven Bartlett 53:46 Mad.

Craig David 53:46 It's facts, yeah? The, the, the following night... Sorry, how am I missing this? It was... (laughs) It was Missy and Beyoncé.

Steven Bartlett 53:54 Fuck off.

Craig David 53:55 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. I couldn't quite work out 'cause the lights were too, too dark. So I got 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 singing-

Steven Bartlett 54:15 You're joking.

Craig David 54:16 ...Walking Away. And I'm just like... I mean, what do you say at that point? I didn't know... I felt emotional. I felt... 'Cause it was Stevie Wonder from the record collection, from my mum's stuff, Beyoncé, I've got Destiny's Child on my wall. I had 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, 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, what he did is he said it even more like, like coded. He's like, "Yeah, Em..." It was like Em, he said. It was like, "Em's got your album." Like he was just like vibing. I said, "Who, Em?" "Yeah, you know MJ, 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." And I was, I was, "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 rollercoaster ride, which later, la- the later years I think, which we get into, it, it, it harps back to that. And I can f- I can see where the, 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, it was like getting on a surfboard and actually being on the wave. And you're, you're doing, I don't know, there's a... I never use this word, but like the most gnarliest, like you're on the gnarly wave. It's gnarly, you know what I mean? You're the, the, the... there's a rip, rip current and it's going crazy. You're through the middle, the eye of it, you're on it. You're not coming off. But then there was a point when the next album, Slicker Than Your Average, dropped, which was only like a year or so later, 2002. Had great success with Watch your Flava and, and the s- and the songs were hitting, but there was this... Born To Do It had now done seven million albums. Which-

Steven Bartlett 56:10 Six times plat- platinum.

Craig David 56:11 Oh.

Steven Bartlett 56:12 Six times platinum.

Craig David 56:13 It's, it's, it's still, still crazy.

Steven Bartlett 56:15 Maths.

Craig David 56:15 And when you said about the Wembley Arena, three times sold out, I'm standing outside there's a sign, I've got it at my mom's house, like there's a picture of... And I'm like, you just can't make it up. It's, it, it was so beautiful and I'm so grateful for those times. But I started to see from the Slicker Than Your Average time where the record label would already start to quote a, "Oh, it's gonna do 10, 11 million obviously, Slicker Than Your Average 'cause now the trajectory's gonna be... It has to go higher than this." So then when the album ended up coming out, it ended up selling 3.5 million albums. I'm, 3.5 million albums. Yeah, at the time I remember that there was this feeling in the company of, "Ah, hmm, right, only 3.5." And I'm, I'm, I'm impressionable. I'm a young kid. I don't know. I'd, I've just got into this, the, the music business and you're telling me that that's not a good thing. 'Cause last time I checked, the feeling I'm getting is, I just want 3.5 million albums. Give 3.5 million to any artist now, f- it's like we're good. We've, we're, we're, we what... So I'd already started to buy into there was some- it was, there was a traject- 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, the defining of, defining of product and defining of you being a commodity that has to achieve something now that you've set it up here. Whereas I thought it got all fun when you started to do it. I thought it got more playful. And then 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. And everyone's-

Steven Bartlett 57:58 Expectation.

Craig David 57:59 Beyond. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 58:00 Expectation. The curse of all-

Craig David 58:02 Thank you.

Steven Bartlett 58:02 ... happiness and joy and... (laughs)

Craig David 58:04 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 Estelle, who's been with me like for... I got... I, I love the conversations that we've, we've had over the years and, and him even saying at early doors that, "I can't guarantee you success. I, but I'll do everything in my power to, to pro- 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, is paramount when you do start to get these, the feedback trickling through, 'cause 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 tod- 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 gonna be able to see by Tuesday, Wednesday that your numbers are already showing that you're already number three now. You've 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, the beautiful metal number one, already, 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, to... I was making songs and they were connecting but if it was a number four in the charts but it wasn't number one like it was before, haven't got the same amount of time that I had to, to make those songs. I've got, haven't got enough life really. All those sort- 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, "Well, we need it on a deadline and we need it this time and you've got f- hit this," in the mix of the fact you're doing 100 interviews and you're doing... you're flying all over the place but still you've got to conjure up that thing. 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 Houstons. The, the height of success when it is like whoa, like otherworldly, there's so much of the, the human part that's being unmet that it, it gets to a point where breaking point and then something happens, be it's, 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 that level for that amount of time. And I, 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 they kind of made me have to go back to a lot of things that were ... like when my, my grandmother passed away, which is when the next

Narrator 1:01:04 Yeah.

Craig David 1:01:04 ... damn 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 for my, about my grandmother to my mum to say, "Look, 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." Those things, they start to get back in my heart, 'cause we can get heady. And when it starts to get heady, you're out of, you're s- you're not in sync with this. This is the real brains, and I've learnt that now. It's n- it's not... This is a, is a r- loyal servant to the heart, but if you go from here and then the, the... you can find the, the ways to get to A to B, but it has to start from here, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:46 I had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast. As we all know, energy independence and living a little greener has never been more important for a better future. It's a, it's a journey I've been on over the last couple of years that I've shared with you sporadically, ever since I sold my Range Rover Sport and bought an electric bicycle. And there's a lot of people out there that listen to this podcast that are looking to make that sustainable switch in the things that run their daily life, whether it's their home, their car, their vehicles, whatever it might be. So when a good friend of mine at a company called My Energy called Jordan, told me she was interested in sponsoring this podcast, I jumped at the opportunity. So for those of you that don't know, My Energy are a UK renewable energy brand whose mission is to increase the usage of green energy, helping people like you and I to save time and money when it comes to making sustainable switches in our lives. So if this resonates with you and you're the type of person that's been looking or thinking about going on your own sustainability journey, I highly recommend checking them out at myenergy.com.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:46 And you described that journey as a, as a rollercoaster.

Craig David 1:02:48 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:49 So what, at what point did, did that rollercoaster start heading down from that, um, y- place you describe as euphoria to a place where you, um, weren't euphoric? Talk t- talk to me about the, the down part of the rollercoaster.

Craig David 1:03:01 I'd say when I released, uh, the Trust Me album in 2009, um, it, it just felt that it was ... from where I'd started off with very cultural records like Rewind and Fill Me In, which is why we talked earlier how there's songs you can play now and they still seem to hit. When I, when I look at 2009 and the Trust Me album, I f- I felt like I was starting to m- 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, um, 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, it wasn't as synth-based and, and so... which I'd drawn all my inspirations from as a, 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 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. Signed, Sealed, Delivered was, uh, an album that I did just after that, which was I was out of a, a deal at the time, um, just because I'd run the, the tenure of my, my, my deal, um, so it was kind of a fresh start. I could look at different record labels. Universal were, were excited so we did a deal with Universal. Then I was ... put out this album called Signed, Sealed, Delivered, which was an, uh, a covers album. (inhales deeply) And I was singing, like, Dock of the Bay and the title song, Signed, Sealed, Delivered, from Stevie, but verbatim like the originals. It wasn't some chopped and screwed. It wasn't an R&B version. It wasn't a garage thing. It wasn't like your ... it was like-

Steven Bartlett 1:04:44 The same song.

Craig David 1:04:45 ... 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 wanna continue making music like this?" And thankfully, the, the, the, the world always, th- 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 g- if the feeling I was getting was being mirrored back, I'm not quite feeling this, so the world says, "Cool. I'll give you more of you're not quite feeling this in your circumstances that happen around you." Whereas when I was the kid growing up making the first album, I was feeling everything. I was feeling the song on the way home from the studio. I was feeling it on my sub speaker at home. I was feeling those rides up in the car to do the performance. It was feeling.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:30 Mm-hmm.

Craig David 1:05:31 (smacks lips) And now I check in with that deeply because I know that anytime I'm not feeling it, act from that, not from the head saying, "Well..." I don't know, Seal had a big covers album at the time, I think that was a good reference point. He had a huge covers album, was doing w- serious numbers. And that was the sentiment that Universal were, were presenting, like, "Do a covers record, no-brainer, you can sing these songs. Motown, gonna be good as a soul thing, and then off- springboard off the back of that with your own album." That was the, the play. Was never really worked out that way 'cause it, it didn't really work out as an album. It didn't hit the way it did, and there was no