Catching Up With Craig David

Friday, 3 December 2021 14:49

Craig David is back after a well-earned break with a new single. Isle of Wight Radio presenter, David Francis, caught up with him over Zoom — about the last few years.

DAVID: How did you cope thoughout the lockdowns?

CRAIG: You know, lockdown was affecting all of us in in a myriad of different ways. But I was just grateful that my friends and my family were okay. And wherever I could try to help people in the community just like neighbours to make sure they're okay. But after that, it became sort of a creative process, I was like, well, okay, let me write songs. Let me write songs. Let me write songs. And the next thing you know, I had so many songs by the time we could go back out and actually meet people again. I was like, wow, we're in a really interesting position.

DAVID: It seemed to be a very cathartic time for the record industry, loads of people spent their lockdown writing new albums.

CRAIG: I think it gave everyone the opportunity to do things that they wouldn't normally do, because they never had the time to do it. And that's not to say that all the issues and problems that were going on, I mean, putting food on the table and paying the rent, and those things were still happening, but it was like, okay, I can't do anything. We're going to pull the Monopoly board out tonight, and we're going to have a game, or we're going to watch a movie that I've never watched because I've never got time.

DAVID: Where in the world are you living now?

CRAIG: I'm in the UK. I tried to make my studio setup feel like if we're in the Maldives or Miami or somewhere. That's the greatness of a printer. And some nice glossy paper and a little bit of imagination that you can definitely give it a vibe. Do you know what, it actually goes hand in hand with how it was when I was living in Southampton. And I was at City College and I'd use the printer cartridges and the paper there when everyone thought when I was in the library, they're like, great, you're in the library all the time. We're studying how to get this cover of a mixtape right and print it out correctly.

DAVID: Let's talk about the new record then. Your email must be full of people sending you requests and demos and ideas and stuff. So how did this track with MNEK happen?

CRAIG: Me and MNEK share the same circle of friends and songwriters. So we've always had this link, but we've never actually said, okay, should we do a record together? And he sung the vocal that we hear now on ‘Who You Are’. And when I heard that, I was like, whoa, something special just happened right here. And he couldn't really see because he's in the eye of the storm. I said I need you to be on this record. I was so thankful that he accepted and said that he'd stay on the record, because it wouldn't have come out, put it that way, because there wasn't a vocalist I could feel that would have portrayed it like he does.

DAVID: So for next year, your 2022 diary is going to get full of stuff because you're going to be in massive demand again, so it will be Ibiza, festivals and touring again.

CRAIG: I'm going to be in Bournemouth really soon, that's going to be like a homecoming for me because I spent so much time obviously living on the South Coast. So to come and perform for the fans… it really feels like this tour….it's solid, it's locked in. I think in 2021, everything that was being booked in felt a bit wishy washy, like no one really knew exactly how it stood. Whereas now it feels like okay, we're going to have a proper Christmas this year. We're going to go out. We're going to festivals, we're going to come to the arena tour. We're going to have that, so I'm happy that everyone can have some solid plans.

Craig’s new song ‘Who You Are’ is available now.

Catching Up With Craig David

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