The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Craig David Opens Up About His Painful Rise, Fall & Redemption

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Craig David is a singer and DJ who has sold over 15 million records worldwide. With over 20 years in the music industry, he is one of the world’s best-known singers. But when he found his career falling away beneath him, Craig had to reinvent himself. Coming back with the incredibly popular TS5, Craig has risen to the top, fallen back and then rebuilt himself back to exactly where he left off. Nothing reveals the truth about yourself more than having it all and (most of it) being taken away. Craig had to dig deep and express what was true to himself, but first he had to find out what that meant. Follow Craig: Instagram -  https://www.instagram.com/craigdavid Twitter - https://twitter.com/craigdavid Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to amazon music who when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all

of you that listen to this show let's continue making moves yeah on a death floor this means so so much to me everything i touched was turning to gold Making moves, yeah, on a dance floor. We eat wine when the crowd say move. Craig Davis! This means so, so much to me. Everything I touched was turned into gold. Everyone wanted a piece of me. How does an 18, 19-year-old deal with that? The height of success when it is like, whoa, there's so much of the human part that's being unmet.

I felt like I was starting to make music that ticked boxes. When I started to 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 going to go off when they hear something soon, okay? So 22 years later, if you could whisper in the ear of your 14-year-old self, what would you whisper? Listen, Craig. Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO.

I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself Craig I've got some lyrics that I wanted to recite to you okay 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 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 yeah that was uh that was that was a song I had to, it was the first time I think kind of opening up and expressing experience that I felt I had maybe

on a lesser degree to a lot of other people in my school. I think at school, like in my secondary school, I've had a very, I had a beautiful upbringing. I enjoyed life, was a playful kid. I love music. But secondary school, all boys school, went to Belmore and Southampton. And for the majority of it, it was great times.

But when you come in in your early years and you've got the older boys in there and they're like, you got two pound on you. No, I haven't got two pound. And push they're like, you got two pound on you. No, I haven't got two pound. I'll push you up again. You got two pound on you. And then it's not a case of like, have you got the money?

He'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 experiencing it physically in the corridors. 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 one period in the school so I understood what bullying was I mean that was I was I was felt

helpless I couldn't it was two years older stronger could rough me up if we really wanted to but then also I was seeing other people who were getting 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 deal with it this is the thing with bullying is that I agree with it needs to be spoken to someone you can confide in but sometimes that kind of very rushing you told the teacher they rush in they it's all out in the open I was seeing kids who would then have the kid waiting outside of school for them or it might be that they 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 so So the whole world is now outside of school. You finish at 3 p.m. and now it's beginning for you. So I felt deeply that I needed to write on that. And like I said, my mum and dad had their own things going on in their lives. And I spoke to my mum. I wrote the song when I was in Southampton. I got like a studio when I was down there and and I spoke to my mum I wrote the song when I was in Southampton I got like a

studio when I was down there and I played it to her because I wanted her to also know that mum you've always been supportive to me like 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 mother or your father um and I wanted to really portray that in the song properly but I wanted to have that combo with my mum to let her know I knew that you would have always if I needed to speak to you would have been there because I do say you got your problems of your own and I've tried to tell you so many times 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 So music has been that,

that song in particular, I think that was a journey. My grandma had passed away at the same time. 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 a way that wasn't trying to preach. It was just, let me tell stories, anecdotes.

And I do it through music. And you were bullied for your weight back then as well, right? Yeah. trying to preach it was just let me tell stories anecdotes and i do it through music so and you were bullied for your weight back then as well right yeah the well the weight one was it's funny because like you like to tell the story differently when you're you're in a slightly different place and position you'll you'll tell it like no you know it was and i like i like everything about this is what you the your podcast for me has always and i wanted to tell you off the bat what i love about you is that you're bringing out so much so much depth in people and you already know how much love i got for you anyway the being overweight thing now i see it is actually in hindsight it actually it brought out so many things wonderful things that had to kind of that

have been repressed for a long period of time. But at the time, the social standard was you need to look a certain way. The captain of the school football team tended to be the one that the girls were interested in. You were the slightly overweight one that they cry on your shoulder, tell you all your problems, have this real, you have a real empathic relationship.

You'd be like, this is connection. This is real relationship. But. You'd be like, what, this is connection. This is real relationship, but we didn't want to take it any further than that. Oh, well, he's the one. Look at the way he scored the goal. So then you've already got this early imprint of what society expects of you. And then you start trying to conform to that.

So there are periods where I'd look in, walking down 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 jacket's not and you're getting bigger sizes and then you're just feeling like i'm doing all the fit i'm doing i could run i had some i had some legs on me you know and probably boys at school they'd be like bro you weren't you weren't that fast to run it which part do you run it but i'll tell the story i'm on the mic now um so i can move but i was just carrying a lot of weight um but not unhealthy i think there was a point that when it became unhealthy was when i realized

that my weight had i was like 15 and i think my weight was starting to get to, I was 14 and my weight had got to 14 and a half stone. So I was starting to get over my age and weight. And I was like, maybe I need to slightly rein this in a little bit health wise. I ask these questions because, and I always start with childhood on this podcast. And 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, ended up being like the biggest drivers in my life. So when I sit here, I'm trying to find out why, you know, you got really into fitness, and why you became you know, who you 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 and and those tend to be the pathway to people's you know people's greatness in a weird way 100% like it all you're you're you've got this this period where your heart's open you want to you're experiencing life you're a child like you said you're a child you're a puppy you look you just you don't know and then all of a sudden you get that oh is that oh that oh i can't do that oh that's the way to go and you're you're you're getting all that you're imprinting all these

patterns that only later you start to realize in in your in your not even saying teenage years i think it's still in adolescent years at that point but when maybe in your 20s start to unpack things just if you if you're conscious you're starting to recognize that this doesn't seem to line up with my truth and then into your 30s for me it was like well 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 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, yeah, yeah, I was early days entrepreneur, early days.

You'd find the chocolate that was like, had about two weeks left before it was out of date. And you, I'd work that in my, in my lessons. Like, listen, I knew I had like from nine till 11 before there was a there was a tuck shop break so i could just set the tone as to how much i want to sell it for well you want a mars bar for yeah it's a pound 50 but i wouldn't have pound 50 okay brother wait till 11 then you can go get it for 35p whatever it's oh i've got a pound then okay cool the leverage was incredible right so i always had a an affiliation and one of my favorite movies is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory so I think that set the tone anyway I've

got a bit of Augustus Gloop in me I've got I think we've got all the myriad of characters in that movie is me and ultimately Charlie like you know I mean um so yeah so it's just I've been unpacking it a lot of those things and realizing that my my health streak that I got went on when I was in 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 music, when I started Rewind, started blowing up,

it was people just want to hear me sing. Yeah. 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. So just know that, otherwise your stomach's going to fall out. So if that's, there's a saving grace for everyone. Don't worry about the fat content

and your fat percent. There's a six pack underneath everyone. So walk out in the street and feel confident with that. That's great. I'm going to start telling people that um you talked in those lyrics but then also then you talked about your parents and you said there was i know again that's another dynamic because those are the for most people the most formative figures in their life what was the relationship with your parents and you said they had things going on that that were

kind of it sounded like distracting them from the things that were going on in your school life. Yeah, I mean, my mum and dad broke up, got divorced when I was eight. But the beautiful thing is that my dad always would come pick me up on the weekends on a Sunday and we'd either be going to like Poulton's Park, like go-karting or I'd be helping him fix a kitchen um which I've

got I would say to my dad like dad like what's coming to fix a kitchen like like we like it's just I remember the tools and the dry and dust and I'm thinking but I love 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 mom it was like she was working nine to five um so my grandma and my mother were pretty much raising me my grandma would come pick me up from school when my mom was at work so i had a lot of feminine energy in my life which i'm really grateful for because it set the tone for how i wrote a lot of my songs even seven days I

mean I'm saying making love a 17 years old writing a song who's saying making love yeah on Wednesday I mean you listen to the songs now they're not using that kind of language but it was that I got there's a respect I had for my for my for my mother for my grandmother and the fact that even for my dad I didn't want him I'm cussing out on record my dad would just be like yeah we need to like speak about this. 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 feminine energy and female love and tension 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 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 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? 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's always there sort of saying, we can have this convo if you want. Like I'll present you with the books. I can present you with the click on the right podcast intuition is always there sort of saying we can have this convo if you want like we can i'll present you with the books i can present you with the click on the right podcast to go to i'll get you to we can unpack this someone will inspire you to do that 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 didn't i my heart was closed from the basis that not only from the family modeling, but also your first break heartbreak. So for me, it was like, I was so open. And I had that first heartbreak and it just went from a kid who was 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 feeling and I'd never felt anything like that before where I was like I didn't know who to turn to it was like I felt that after after early childhood sweetheart breakup my heart had kind of closed down and I and I feel sorry for the the the girls and and women in the last days of my life who tried to open my heart up and that's all they were trying to do there's there's there was things that went a bit toxic and went but I I have to own those situations a lot of guys is like yeah well she's the the girl was like this or she was crazy 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 there's a there's an energy exchange between two people and you can play it off it's like no but we had an unwritten agreement 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 that there'll be some someone who will be your teacher at some point and I thank everyone in my life that I've had relations with I thank you for teaching me in some way I 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 early times with the music and everything going on and 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 so two questions on that then what was the evidence or the story that your parent your parents relationship taught you or left you with okay for better for worse and then that first heartbreak what were the two stories those two incidents told you about relationships so having no modeling of what real relationship is it it showed me early from from mum 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. And I have sisters and brothers, but I never, of my dad's other relationships that he had,

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 there's been scenarios where a girl says she's in a relationship and thankfully it hasn't been husband or anything, but there've been relationships. I'm not going to be the guy and say, I've never met a girl who's in something. And I tell you a story that I was breaking up. We're not really in it, but you you're starting it's reinforcing the same thing

of well stay single then yeah don't get involved in all this because your heart will be protected and life is good and we can keep our arms 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 psychologically 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 you're 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 a week week and a half yeah the break really it wasn't it was this one we're talking early early days but when your heart is fully open yeah 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 what why did you have to end up being with my best friend like why did there's moments where i'm looking back thinking when i was writing that song what was i feeling i was feeling the same heartbreak that i had the same zero understanding of what relationship is and 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 in your life 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 yeah i've got you i know baby steps if we need to but i'm with you yeah i'm at that place now where i'm like do you think your heart's open my heart's open man it's open in a way that I'm I'm down if it if something tried to try 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 a few years back the journey has kind of rapidly kind of entered into a phase where I just know that that's the truth of the matter. And where are you relationship wise? Single at the moment. Single.

Which is, again, you have, especially as a guy, and I can only really kind of speak on my experiences, and we tend to, our actions have to line up with the way that we're feeling. And I felt that there was times when I was talking a good talk, but 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 had changed long 10 years ago for me that 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 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 a 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 laugh is one of the biggest values of of any relationship someone makes me laugh cry uncontrollably you've always got half of my heart already yeah because that's going to save you when the relationship has its ups and downs so the down is when you need someone you can bring that because trust me the romantic phase as as we all know that's intoxicating yeah when you need someone who can bring that. Because trust me, the romantic phase, 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. That hangover, right then, that's when you're going to ask yourself, am I really in love? The romantic thing, that's this bit of sweetness. Have you had a long-term relationship? It would sound so short for so many people for me it felt long two and a half years was probably my longest relationship and same as me and even then

like i don't feel like i opened my heart 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 it back and you say thank you because you taught me so much about how i was moving and how i was going on and i'm a better man for that because now i can open up my heart like this because a lot of guys don't want to talk like that they want to keep it cool one of the other things talking about things that kind of invalidated us when we're younger or that we were aspiring to i saw this quote and i actually saw a picture of the other things talking about things that kind of invalidated us when we're younger or that we were aspiring to i saw this quote and i actually saw a picture of the estate you lived on

and it's um i'm gonna say it's not the estate that i would wish to have lived on i don't want to criticize you know an area but it's not it didn't look i saw like a gray apartment apartment block and it looked like a quite you know it was a council estate yeah um and you the quote you said was you were a kid looking out of your bedroom window at the estate car park imagining jacuzzis do you know what i think to correct the quote even more yeah because the jacuzzi one like it's funny because 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 I was thinking what jacuzzi was actually jumping in because last time I checked you were in a two-bedroom flat with your mum yeah

so the only jacuzzi you were jumping in was your bath yeah so that's let's put that record and you were in a four by four yeah okay cool so which driving license did you have at that point because you were only like 15 16 when you're right that's what aspirations aspirations but looking out of that window overlooking that car park what my grandmother brought to to the table in terms of like i mean the love my mom just my family i'm just very grateful for that upbringing but my grandma as grandmas do and i make sure you you get the right food in you make sure you wear the jacket you know i mean it's gonna get cold it's gonna rain later on and you're like grandma then it rains they just have this wisdom yeah but she had a beautiful little garden 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 wasn't it was enough as an inspiration to say if i could have a house with

a garden in southampton we're good here i mean did I know that, how it would cascade from the music into, yeah, just that times 10 in terms of just like my eyes being open, but it was that inspiration for my grandma. And I looked at the car park and it was like, it kept me on my grind. Like council, estate, 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 chocolates at school. I 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 that I'd be doing at home, which would buy another piece of equipment that I'd get another pair of speakers 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 was everything I kind of am doing now weirdly enough it's no different than what I was doing when I was a kid I literally had my 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 because she already had her own things going on and she supported me beyond like I think she was going to deeply into overdrafts just to make my my life feel comfortable you got the Sega Mega Drive right with Sonic the Hedgehog and those those games yeah so I brought my memories. Yeah, you got that. But when I think back,

wherever my money was getting, wherever my mum was getting this money from, like she was deeply in debt. So when you look back, you say, mum, the love I have for you, like nine to five, 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 supported, he would, no one could cross me. No one could do anything bad to 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 the things. So how, where's that part? So you're having to understand, I've got so much feminine energy in me and that part, but I need to speak your truth truth action now so it's the yang the yang my man the yang yeah the yang so you talk about music there and one of the things that was really remarkable reading through your story is how early music came into your world and how early you started like selling mixtapes and i sat here with i've sat here with many musicians and it

tends tended to happen a little bit later in life even Even Diplo sat here last week and Diplo, it was, I don't know, he was 25 or something before he really started going in music. But you were young. I know your dad had an influence on that because he was very into reggae. Yeah. And he was in a reggae band, right? Yes. But where did music show up in your life?

And then, and how did that obsession kind of like take hold? I mean, it was early. Like I said, when I, early on when I said like like you do a little high five when you come into the world I feel that and you lose sort of the cognitive understanding as to what's going on 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 it in the flat with a big box of records and I'd just be flicking through them and I and there was a vinyl in there there was Ebony Rockers which is my dad's reggae group which more recently there's a mural now in Southampton they put on on Ogle Road huge mural

that says about Ebony Rockers and I'm'm thinking, wow, so proud of my dad. I was like, yes, dad. Cause you are a musician in your heart, bass guitar player. The group were talking about social issues that were going on in the seventies, eighties 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'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 mum would say yeah that's your dad's group and I'd be like what my dad's like early though I'm talking like five six years old looking like what my dad's in a group so I know that's definitely there's some lineage there there's there's dna that's come through musically my mom was always into stevie wonder and michael jackson uh my first ever seven inch i ever bought was uh it was human nature oh really what michael jackson yeah because it was on a seven inch it was in a there was a small little box next to the 12 inch

um it's the first one i bought that's why to the 12 inch um it's the first one i bought that's why let me tell you right it's the first one i bought first song i ever bought so that's why and i mean look at the lyric of the song i mean it couldn't be any more perfect as a song of like being conscious and understanding the world so yeah so i had a and then there was there was the bit of donny osmond in there because my mum was a big fan of the Osmonds, which was a big group back in the day. Mixed with the Stevies and the Michaels and then also had my dad's reggae,

deep reggae from Beres Hammond to Sanchez, Terra Fabulous, Buja Banton, Beanie Man, Bounty, like early, like I'm a sound man at heart. I think when I'm in the studio people like you literally are budgabantan but no one's actually like hearing you do this yeah because i go into this reggae kilimanjaro david rodrigan uh black cat sound system in me so when i see carnival i'm just like it's me sitting up and posted up with a little bit of rice and chicken a little budweiser by a speaker and i'm good so yeah man that music started off early and then i just i just felt

like it just was gravitating towards it when was the first time you made music in any kind of context um first time i made music was my dad got me 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 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 he had loads of faders, loads of microphones with different coloured foam capsules on the top. It looked the business with 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 because 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 that. So I started to record.

I would have said I was 11, 11, 12 years old when that came through. And you put a TDK cassette tape There was a D90, it was like the basic one Or if you were feeling kind of saucy with it You have like a chrome or a metal They were £2.49, those ones But if you went for the normal D9, it was like a little 69p one I'd 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 and then i didn't quite get the memo of oh we have to change the melody that much for it to not be sounding like i'm singing jodeci freaking you or boys to men why does it sound like you literally just changed like the the road to street on the end of the road you have to do a bit more than that which I kind of you will learn quickly if you don't get the memo yeah um but yeah so I start to bounce the vocals down so you sing onto one cassette you put that in the bottom tape cassette you then put in

fresh one in the top and you 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. Cause this is old school stuff. But I was starting to finish a song. I was feeling very, very proud of myself that I could actually write a song. How old?

I would have been like, yeah, like 11, 12 years old. 11, 12 years old. But yeah, that kind of led into a world very nourished with R&B, reggae, but also the pop soul element.

Terrence Shandabi was the first show I ever went to at the Guildhall in Southampton. It blew my mind. I 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, was like seven eight million albums was a huge record for him with the breakout song sign your name across my heart again look at the the messages sign your name across my heart yeah I'm like finally we're getting the message now I need to let someone sign it fully you know I mean and capitals hold that but changed my life i was like if i can i'd love to do what that guy does from 11 12 where you're messing around with those cassettes

to i think when i've heard you kind of kind of recount it your first break was winning that songwriting contest with damage wasn't it yes was that would you consider that to be your first kind of like break opportunity you know what it's like's like, it gave me, it gave me the first taste of, of reinforcing that I could actually do this. Like I thought it was a bright break. Like I was going to, we've done it here. Yeah. 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, it went to number was the lead single. I'm telling everyone, it went to number two in the charts. I'm telling all my friends that's because of obviously by song I'm Ready, not the classic Wonderful Tonight that they've covered, right? But I thought it was off the back of me.

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 country. But I didn't, off the back of it was like,

okay, it was in the shops for a few weeks but nothing it went quiet after that How old were you when you won that songwriting competition for the boy band Damage? I would have said I was 14 around that So you start messing around with music at about 11ish

you said right and then at 14 you win the songwriting competition for the boy band Damage 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 yeah yeah it was it was and again the support of my mom and dad in in in ways that now i'm just like so thankful for of bringing that studio 100 piece of equipment that for me to record you you know, my first record deck,

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 mix it. 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 chocolate thing going also. There's something really interesting about you saying nerdy with it, because the guests that i 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 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 was the same thing he was just clearly just nerdy with it 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 right isn't that doesn't appear to be um or at least the the starting point doesn't appear to be this obsession with becoming a superstar. It's this kind of nerdy fascination because you spent three years between 11 and 14 just messing around with cassettes on some piece of hardware that your dad bought you. Yeah, of course. It did feel that my obsession with music, like when I look back and it's different now because I have 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 start collecting vinyl. 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 I had everything in alphabetical order with the plastic um 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 where I'd swap shop with records I'd be like like the other DJs would say I got to London 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 thousand songs to kind of to look through it was like if the DJ played in the club you better go speak to the DJ find out where he got it from because he's got there's 10 copies maybe and there's a promo that's not going to come out for six months literally songs were like you had time because it was physical where are you going to go you can't copy this unless you've got a lathe

and you're going to start to print acetates in your house. So you had to wait. So when you went out to London, especially because this was like the hub for where everything was being made and printed up, I come back sometimes to Salampton with some record. DJs all know, where you get that, Craig? Where you get that?

I say, yeah, you know, I'll swap you a Faith Evans. I just can't. And a Jade for the tune that you got and I said maybe give me a little 10 pound extra for that you could you could it was all vibes man I just it was such a fun time because things were slower 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 between 14 and 18 then what happens then for you i'd gone from the songwriting competition uh a moment where it was like okay this is the this is the thing but then it can carry on where okay this wasn't necessarily a big breakthrough heavily into the into collecting records. I started to DJ early on. I was MC at first for another DJ called DJ Flash, who I respect so much

because he brought a lot into my life to be able to be a chaperone for me, really. He knew my dad and he was 10 years older than me. And at 14, I looked a little older as well. So I could style it to get into clubs with him and he'd let me be his mc so i'd be called mc fade and i was just like you know i mean their fade was chris and i just thought that was the it's great and then he'd give me like a he'd give me a little slot uh to play maybe a little 15 minutes at the end of his

dj set so in southampton he was playing most of the kind of big clubs there and he introduced me to the Cajun Zoo in Bournemouth um we do a couple shows in Portsmouth so I was like his I was his MC and also his box boy as well because 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 your squat game's got to be really on point your glutes will be fired up but i'd always do this thing with him where i'd be like the flash i think i see that girl over there i was trying to find like a girl he had his eyes on he'd be watching 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 said don't worry i got you i'll let me you go speak to her. He goes, yeah, but... I go, don't worry, I got you. I'll... Let me... You go and speak to her, man, because she's going to go and it's all going to... Okay, cool. Handle the fort. I'll handle the fort. Don't you worry. So I play 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 move. She blows him out completely because you were never looking at him at all for the whole thing, right?

I've got a 30-minute DJ setting there. He's coming back like, great. It's like she did it even... I go, I know know she was looking at you all the time i'm not sure you've got to find your ways yeah but i learned from between that 14 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 allister who was part of the artful dodger, who does MC sets now. And then it was kind of, it was moving. I was at college.

I'd gone from secondary school now, I was at college, a city college. I was doing an MVQ level two in electronics. It was like the closest thing I could get to music because there wasn't like production courses that they do now, which would have 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 want to know how Timberland makes that or Rodney Jerkins makes the the vocal sound so good can someone show me that then there wasn't a course so I thought let me do electronics because at least that gets me closer to circuit boards richard sounds was around the corner i had some wicked equipment and i thought even if i got a job working there would be great i'd be near deck 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 mcing there never thought it would necessarily me meeting mark hill and pete devereaux from the Artful Dodger, which is where it really then transcended. Tell me about that. So in one club, it was called Old Orientals,

10 minutes around the corner from where I was living with my mum. Was DJing downstairs, R&B hip hop set. Upstairs was House and Garage night. Mark Hill and Pete Devereaux,aux 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 there's even like the the lessons in love i was coming through robbie craig and there

were just tunes coming in play. And I'd always pop my head up and be like, it wasn't packed up there, but I was just like, this is a vibe. It's got like, it's like they're layering

R&B stuff now. It fell over, this skippy, I don't know, what do you call it? I don't know what Two Step was. It was like, it was a speed garage.

It was weird, like some eclectic thing that's not house, but it feels UK. And then all of a sudden we got into conversation i was talking about all these songs that i've 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 that i mean this is where it's so divine like the serendipity of it was so beautiful Mark Hill who ended up producing the whole of Born to Do It album said I've been looking

for someone who writes songs like I do music like I've got the music thing like that but I need someone who writes songs you can sing and I was like oh this is a perfect marriage and he says I've got studios like five minutes from here at a place called Ocean Village. And I was like, you can't even make this up. Like it was the club, like my flat, 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 What You're Gonna Do,

which was the first release from Artful Dodger. And I remember it being printed up on a 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 I was on vinyl yeah and they 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 and Soho Records there And Brixton we've got I was like And something started To build my man Like 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 come back down From London saying I'm hearing your tune

Getting played on Pirate radio stations You know I'm like what I'm hearing like It's going off Drop the funk Drop the bass

Hit it And I'm like what Are you And they're like but then random people saying oh well i was coming from london it's getting played like i went to a club it went off the dj span 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 got invested in that in that record they've done a licensing deal for that song.

They said, do you want to come up to London and start doing some PAs, some performances for this song? And so I'd love to. So I called up my mate Clinton in his yellow Fiesta. I remember it clearly. Got a Jamaican flag in the back, yeah? Just like he had it proudly there. He had like the sub speaker in the boot going crazy.

The thing was tuned up like he was coming, going to Notting Hill Carnival.ival yeah the sound system was way more than the car right sounded chris so we're up there slipping like 50 pounds to to get me up there get me back and literally i go up i was getting like 250 300 pound for 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 got there and seen what you're going to do and i'd go on stage and i was this young 15 year old kid i was 16 at the time. Walked out and the DJ, even more like any DJ could play because 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 fee. And if I was going off doing a performance, then I would just take the money. And if they did a DJ set somewhere, they'd take it.

So we just had a nice little agreement going on. So I'd go up there and the DJ would, you say, you ready, ready? I'd go, yeah, I'm ready, ready. And he'd be like, drop the funk, drop the bass. 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, they're spinning it up and everyone's going, which is where it led to Bo Selector with Rewind. Why I was saying that in the song, it's like, that was the phrase, it's like, Bo, Bo, Bo Selector.

That was the phrase as a cultural reference for that music. And I think that that's where it kind of just, it just was exponential after that. It just went from what you're going to 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 performance of that song. I wasn't sure if the crowd were feeling it because it goes into this,

this baseline in the chorus, which is very, it feels like a halftime R&B record. So it's like, so it's like, rewind. When a crowd say, rewind, you just got the baseline.

It's half time You could just be slow jam 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 Like because the verse is Making moves yeah On a dance floor You got the garris thing It's cool And then it goes And people were like

And then when it And that was this usb in the end people were like there's that tune that does that half time i don't know what a bass line thing but it goes slowed and it set the tone for the whole thing that song right there still it's like my baby because i felt it when i walked home with my sony walkman when my headphones on on my jack screens was like walking back like just listen to it thinking i don't need there's certain songs where i don't need any feedback i don't need them 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 going to go off in a club it's just going to 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'm good. I got the full 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 they end up being ugly and that is a a timeless timeless record I mean I listened to it before you came in here so I was listening to it and I was like fuck it's gonna come out last week you know what I mean it feels like that do you see what I mean like I played it I was like this could be this would be a hit now I appreciate you know what I mean 100 yeah it's that it's that it's a it's a it was a cultural record it was it

feels very timeless like i did a show the other day or even yes last night and i drop it in the millennials are going crazy for it the day ones are there going like okay it's just like it's it's one of those ones yeah yeah you know what i mean yeah so that leads you up to the to the point where you start to release your first solo single, Fill Me In. Yeah. Talk to me about that and that whole process because that went straight to number one.

From what you've 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 crazy, crazy in the space of a couple of months as well. Yeah. I mean, it went like from like zero to a hundred,

literally. That's why it was kind of like, behind the scenes, funny enough, even though it's zero to a hundred, there was a lot of learning curve that I was learning. So doing the DJing, doing performances in front of a club,

a club PA, or even before that, when I was doing my DJing stuff as an MC, when the vinyl skipping and the crowd are looking at you like, yo, and you've got to improvise quickly. So man's going into some kind of MC, like some of them, some of them are laughing,

some of them hold the mic, trying to find another bit of vinyl to put on because this one's going to keep skipping. My whole place, whole place, when I write like this, jump around in my Adidas, and everyone's just like,

whoa, and then I get it to mix somehow perfectly, yeah? And I'm sweating yeah because I'm thinking I nearly mashed the whole thing and after people come up saying Craig that was sick when you did that thing how did you do it why are you sweating so much it's not even hot and the air conditioning is blasting that's like if only you knew but it it teed me up for performances going forward so when we got to film 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 i mean you can get that was always the using the name was always like a like a tag the dj tag thing like you put put your name, DJ Khaled would do it. It'd be like, I'd be like, Craig David, all over yours. 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. So it'd just be like, Craig David, it's another one. Like all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I remember doing this performance performance I'd had an interview in in Capital FM and I had to get across Leicester Square to go and do this uh performance of it and 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 them just being calm. I went into the Capitol, 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 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 pitch where it was just like, whoa, BTS flex. It was like madness, like pandemonium. I was 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 building up to be my first number one. And it was my first solo single that went to number one. And it was a song that was released the same day as Destiny's Child's 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 favourite R&B songs all the time. So just for Fill Me in to do what it did i knew something had changed 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 away it was like it was it was everything but more it went from everything i touched was turned into gold because everyone wanted a piece of me and I was doing acoustic performances which was to give a different feel for for filming which I think was a really clever uh move from at the time my record label um was was half owned uh

by my my now manager uh Colin Lester, Telstar and Capital were involved. And it was just like, we wanted to find ways that it just didn't 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 and Garage,

quote unquote star, to, wow, it's actually a song here. He's writing songs. And then the next songs, I think, kind of reinforced that it wasn't just garage. And then from seven days and then to get to walking away. Because walking away, it had 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 doing the whole of doing radio interviews and I'd be 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. How old were you through this period? So you start I mean fill me in was when you were 18? Yeah so yeah so within the album dropped the same year so 2001 was when I went over to the States so it would have been like 19 like.. How does an 18, 19 year old deal with that? Because, you know, with all the attention comes a lot of negative stuff. It's like unavoidable.

It comes with the territory. Even with the like the fame and people clambering on you and stuff, 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 who the demons, right? Because now you've got the money,'ve got the power you've got this admiration

so talk to me about like the the other side of that that meteoric rise i'd say channeling in of how i or tuning into how i was at that time i say the it was euphoric there was that 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. I was at the House of Blues in America. 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 your flash i think that girl actually over there let me do a little mix for you over here get a little half an hour in a set jump fast forward a few years later house of blues three nights in a row first night missy elliott is has come to to watch the show i'm looking up thinking this is crazy like wow i can't stand the rain and just'm just missing the hot next night i'm there i look up in the same balcony jennifer lopez is there i'm like wow and i want to sound like i'm

name dropping but i wanted to be to give context i'm just this fax here the the the following night sorry how am i missing this it was it was missy and Beyonce fuck off 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 because the lights were too too dark so I got the the front 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. You're joking. Walking away. And I'm just like, I mean, what do you say at that point?

I felt emotional. I felt, because it was Stevie Wonder from the record collection, from my mum's stuff. Beyonce, 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 the huge hits for Michael Jackson and then Quincy said you know like MJ no he said it even more like coded he was like yeah it was like M he said M's got your album it's just like vibing yeah you know MJ and Michael

he's got the album he loves Born To Do It he's been listening to it gave it to his friends I was like stop this 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 the later years, I think, which we get into, it hops back to that.

And I can, I can see where 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 i never use this word but like the most gnarliest like you're the gnarly wave it's gnarly you know i mean you're the the it's a rip rip girl 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 Flavor and the songs were hitting. But there was this, Born To Do It had now done 7 million albums. Six times platinum. Oh. Six times platinum.

It's still, still crazy. And when you said about the Wembley Arena three times sold out I'm standing outside the sign I've got it in my mum's house like there's a picture of I'm like you just can't make it up it was so beautiful and I'm so grateful for those times but I started to see from the Slick and the New Average time where the record label would already start to quote uh i was going to do 10 11 million obviously slicker than your average because now the trajectory is going to be 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 right only 3.5 and I'm I'm impressionable I'm a young kid I don't know I just got into this the music business and you're telling me that that's not a good thing because the last time I checked the feeling I'm getting is I just have 3.5 million albums give 3.5 million to any artist now like we're good we're we're you're so I'd already started to buy into there was some it was there was a trajectory 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 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 start to do i thought it got more playful no no 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 expectation beyond expectation the curse of all happiness and joy and you must know this you're just trying to equate what yourself 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 Lesto's been with me like for I got I love the conversations that we've had over the years and and him even saying at early doors that I can't guarantee you success but I'll do everything in my power to to protect you and

keep you safe so you can do your thing. And having those kinds of confidence in the people that you're working with 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 you can get this 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 going to 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 beautiful metal number one or are you really 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, it wasn't number one like it was before. I haven't got the same amount of time that I had to make those songs. I haven't got enough life, really.

All 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 we need it on a deadline and we need it this time. And you've got to hit this. In the mix the fact you're doing a hundred 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 arts that that won't feel that and that's often 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 Winehouse's to the Michael Jackson's to the Whitney Houston's the height of success when it is like whoa like otherworldly there's so much of the the human part that's beingmet, that it gets to a point where breaking point and then something happens, be it drug addiction or if 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'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 grandmother passed away which on the next album 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 from about my grandmother to my mum to say that I know I know 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. And those things, it started to get back in my heart because we can get heady. And when it starts to get heady, you're out of, you're not in sync with this. This is the real brains. And I've learned that now. It's not, this is a loyal servant to the heart.

But if you go from here and then you can find the ways to get to A to B, but it has to start from here, you know. And you described that journey as a rollercoaster. So at what point did that rollercoaster start heading down from that place you describe as euphoria to a place where you um weren't euphoric talk talk to me about the down part of the rollercoaster i'd say when i released the trust me album in 2009 um it just felt there was from where i'd started off

with very cultural records like rewind and fill me, which is why we talked earlier how those songs you can play now and they still seem to hit. When I look at 2009 and the Trust Me album, I felt like I was starting to 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. 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 is becoming very live and it wasn't as, it wasn't as synth based. And so, which I'd drawn all my inspirations from 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. Science Hill Delivered was an album that I did just after that, which was, I was out of a deal at the time just because I'd run the tenure of my deal. So it was kind of a fresh start.

I could look at different record labels. Universal were excited. So we did a deal with Universal. Then I was put out this album called Science Hill Delivered, which was a covers album. And I was singing like Dock of the Bay and the title song Science Hill Deliver deliver 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 the same song same song and i felt like it was time that i needed to sort of check myself and just be like are you getting the fun out of this like you used to? Do you want to continue making music like this? And thankfully, the world always, the universe always 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, 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 if 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 subspeaker at home i was feeling those rides up in the car to do the performance it was feeling 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 serious numbers and that was the sentiment that Universal were presenting like do a covers record no brainer you can sing these songs Motown gonna be good it's 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 because it didn't really work out as an album it didn't hit the way it did and there was no next album that came from off the back of that there was a period of time where i was like i was out of the scene for a second and what and what did you do then this is when you moved to miami yeah so i was in i was in miami from 2010 so it's like about a year after that album and i was there for about five six years for the first two three years the best time probably of my life being out there and anything and everything that you could possibly think of miami being and what it was representing but the latter period of that period that time was where something was ringing inside of me of you're in the wrong place and this is what intuition is very quiet and it's it's it

creeps up and it's this and that it's like it's not even nagging it's like you hear it and you just I don't want to hear it I I want to, it looks great over here. You know what I mean? It looks so aesthetically pleasing from, you know what I mean? The car and the department and the parties and the women. It was like the parties that were just like every day of the week, something going on. Music isn't really getting recorded now because the voice is destroyed

from like shouting in a club and doing a nonsense so music's getting pushed to the side all those fancy toys and the vibe starting to become more important you know means like that my balance of of actual supply and demand of music that got me there was way off i was was literally creating hardly anything. Is there shades of like, you going up on this trajectory when you were like a younger man, 18, 19, et cetera, and then going into this place where you almost abandoned your essence and your roots.

And then that kind of culminates in you making this covers album, which is almost, it's quite, it's almost a bit of a metaphor because then you were really being someone else. Like doing cover albums is by definition, you're covering other people's music and their own style. And then almost this um this period in miami where you get into

partying as it seems like a bit of a distraction maybe or whatever trying to explore trying to get some other pleasure from another type of life yeah and then kind of going back to your your roots in a way where you all of that you'd tasted the shit yes you'd had the don perry on you know and you and that wasn't it so now you go back and ask yourself what is it what is it and then it seems like with ts5 you you created a new kind of expression of who craig david is and who he always was maybe who you had lost sight of over the years because of all these temptations and your own success is ain't that the truth is when you start to realize that actually going back to the things that and it's all back in childhood this is the thing when i when i tune in it's like

the decks and the dj and the mixtapes that was all i was trying to do when i was doing the ts5 house party i just wanted to feel that again like i'm mixing now with my little pioneer dj setup and i'm on the microphone being the host of the mostest. And I just want everyone to feel that feeling that I got into the whole thing for. If someone doesn't know what TS5 is, can you explain, just give an overview of exactly what it is?

Yeah, so TS5 is like, the performance now from the house party that it was, is I'm able to, because I used to DJ when I first started off, as we've spoken about before. And I was at that point then DJ fade. So I honed all my skills on using vinyl and Technics 1210s. The TS5 set is, the name came from the apartment in Miami. And it's a show where I'm able to DJ and mix other people's records

as much as drop my ones in and able to come out of my DJ booth and sing and do a performance in a way for me that is giving me all the feels I got from when I was a DJ, but also I can do the performances and drop some gems in there at the same time. Like I can play a TLC, No Scrubs,

or I can play Say My Name and then go into Fill Me In. I just love it it and taking that to pool parties I did in Ibiza I think I was trying to set the tone of like this isn't a DJ set where I can get away with playing some songs doing a few shots of tequila with my mates and get paid for it and go home i just can't like i get that can work in certain and i have no judgment it's do your thing but for me as a performer mixing the tunes is like it's so easy now like with vinyl is like that was a mission but like now so i can mix the tunes that's nothing but to come out of the booth perform do an mc thing and hit the marker back inside to get to the next song that for me i i pride myself on it's given me

a whole new lease of life for festivals so that's really what ts5 is and it's become a phenomenal brand phenomenal brand for for music putting and it's it's funny because it's such an it's it's quite rare that you have someone that has that kind of skill stack of all those different pieces that can do that i think that's probably why it's been such a such a hit is because you rarely see someone who can drop their own records who can sing who can perform but then who can also dj it's like a really interesting new thing totally yeah i felt i felt it and i got a little touch of it in the pie when i was in in my house pies i mean and i didn't even start to put see this is it's beautiful when you look back at the puzzle pieces when the picture starts to become a little bit more clearer as you put okay that puzzle that piece there meant you needed

that piece to happen for this one to happen so when i was performing in my house i wasn't actually performing in my own songs at all because i just felt like i don't want to start dropping my own songs in the middle of the thing and then i have people come over and be like bro drop that film me in drop rewind one girl came over said drop seven days and I was like nah and she goes please it's my favorite song and I was like and I looked I was like maybe I might do a verse just one and it started me the idea of putting a couple more songs in and then we started to record the set I started to record the set and put on soundcloud so people could listen to it after because people were like oh where can I get

I'd love to listen to it back to that set or we did sang Happy Birthday to Someone and it was a moment that they wanted to hear again and no one caught it and I was like

well let me capture this now and that was actually where it flipped back into mixtape land that I then got my manager took it into KISS KISS originally were like

we can air this put it out as a show. And then it went on to Capital. Capital aired it as well and Capital Extra. So all of a sudden it was like, it's gone from a house party to a thing. And then we did a couple of early shows, two shows in Hackney to see if this house party

would translate into an actual thing. And when I saw people going off in the same way, I thought, wow, this isn't just a Miami thing. It's not just in my house. It's actually people connecting with it. And since then, I guess Glastonbury was probably one of the pinnacle of it because you're there in front of a crowd

who are there for a myriad of different artists. And you're there performing a band set and then go into a DJ set and to see it going off, I was like, this is... I had people from Miami who were early doors when we first did that party which was like nine of us just messing about having a couple shots with playing off iTunes to Glastonbury to Glastonbury they were so it was crazy so it just it's always there the pieces are always there but time sometimes you need to have time and patience

in this it's so interesting looking at your story as as like an outsider and watching that journey of you being this like huge megastar then the downside of the roller coaster as you describe it and then watching you over the last like five six seven eight years come back out with as almost like this completely new character but with a proposition that's as resonant as what you used to do, a very, very different proposition. But you like, okay, from my like, not really paying attention to what's going on in the world, because I'm not really that into pop culture. You know, I used to listen to my Walkman.

And then there was a gap. And then you're back in again, where everyone's talking about Craig David again, but for a completely different proposition, what appears to be a completely different proposition. That's not common or easy. The question I actually actually have for you is because it's a roller coaster your mind goes on the roller coaster as well and this kind of brings me into the topic of mental health yeah be honest with me what was the the mental health journey throughout that whole period of time

do you know where i sit in there was a long period of time, I guess that those words of man up or just roll with it, just roll with it, just man up, is the most amount of nonsense that I've ever had. Cause it's that in of itself is what's caused the crazy suicide rates that we see, especially in men and the way in which it's spiraling out of control. Cause it's like, keep it inside, repress it, put it under the carpet. Don't talk about it.

That's what we do. That very alpha way. And thankfully, and this goes back to my parents, my grandma and my my mom in particular it was all about open and conversation and then and speaking and have have open conversation and be able to get it out and have a convo and I think that there was periods where I just I ride rode through it and I think Miami was kind of just was it was a break from a lot of things and me being out there and being a different climate a different culture enjoying those things but that still wasn't fulfilling what I was really

looking for what I really wanted was connection and relationship in a way that I experienced almost in those kind of early doors before the first album and when it hit so the roller coaster ride is you find character in your lows 100 you you ask the questions the real questions do you really want to do this are you really about this and i am a musician through and through um and i love it but the the the depression is real mental health in in the in the multitude a myriad of different ways that that can come about is real and it's something that you can only

half the battle I've always spoken about is talking to, it's being able to express that to someone you can confide in and even if it's not someone you can confide in in a phone line that you can pick up and just speak to someone you don't know maybe in some ways that can be even better you can just go I've got it off my chest

and they're hearing you they're hearing you they see you but that's only half the battle the rest is then a journey of they call it in more spiritual circles a dark night of the soul of going through into a place where you're going to uncover everything that was put under that carpet having to bring it to the light and having to bring it up and work through it to find a place where you pull the carpet up and all the dust goes up everywhere. And then you start to see where it lands. You start to say, okay, this was a story that I was telling myself. The things I was defining myself of myself were through how I looked and the approval of others. This is

authority figures feeling like they had something over me the power I had when I was the entrepreneur selling chocolates and and making the songs that's really you who I've always been but I had the abandon you used that earlier abandon yourself when that starts to happen it could spiral out of control and I had injuries and and physical injuries through all the training and stuff that I did as well that spiraled me into different depths of depression where I was just like, whoa, I've never experienced this. When things happen that you've never, they cumulatively build up,

but then there's something that breaks it, just snaps it. And at that point, it just feels like, whoa, and you're trying to, you're on free fall. That's the feeling I feel with depression. I've experienced that. I know how it is and i haven't really been as vocal i guess as as today about like that and i feel it's necessary

because it's i don't want to be the one who's telling the story i want to be so authentic and i want to open up like you said you spoke about things that you needed to get off your chest and let people know the other side of all this because in that is where all the beauty and empathy really is and people could connect and they said oh what so you went through that ah so it isn't this thing that only me and all of a sudden we're all connected and I'm thinking yes and then I'm I'm inspired by people who kind of wear the heart on their sleeves now so yeah I feel like it was a culmination of a lot of those things building up to being in the wrong place being being away from my family, missing being able to just make music in the way Shola Amar and I did this one extra performance which was really

I was going to rock up and vibe fill me in and I ended up singing it over Where Are You Now the Justin Bieber, Diplo, Skrillex instrumental there was this moment of love I felt Big Nasty giving me a hug first when I came in wearing his heartlessly

Booty Man's my tune oh my god Craig Booty Man's my tune. Oh my God, Craig. Booty Man is my song. And I'm like, whoa. Like really wearing his heart in his sleeve. And then sing this song, sing Fill Me In as a remix vibe over this instrumental. And it went so viral that I'm looking on my phone

and I'm seeing Justin Bieber like saying like, whoa, that's amazing. You need to check it 45 minutes into the show. Then I'm seeing Skrillex on my timeline. I'm seeing Diin bieber like saying like whoa that's amazing that you need to check it 45 minutes into the show then i'm seeing skrillex on my timeline i'm seeing diplo on the timeline i'm just thinking something's happened here but it was more than just it needed me to play my part and get back home and get go through that miami phase of what that was all about i i i find that really interesting but that's the fit so is was that that miami phase the what that was all about i i i find that really interesting but that's the fit so is was that that miami phase the first phase in your life where you encountered what you believe to be like depressive symptoms where you felt fell into a depression in the in

the latter stages of miami yeah because i got i got injured out there my back went like in like my lower back and i never felt a pain like that in my life like I felt aches and pains of training incidents and different things I've had like anyone who's had like a blowout in the back but this one in particular was just like it was a feeling that just wouldn't give up so I was my movement patterns was went from you know you're 100% you're doing the last kind of leg leg press and now it's all these it's deadlifts and i've got respect for deadlift amazing move but when you're if your back goes on one of those i promise you will there's a feeling that you have which is like putting your hands in like 240 volts in the wall that it's just it's different it's like it's a nerve pain which is

not like an ache or like oh oh, it feels a bit sore. Like you've got DOMS from doing too many kind of like some glute work. So when it went, I was like, I've never felt anything quite like this. And it made me have to check myself in a whole different way for the fact that every movement I did felt like

I was getting that same spasm. So it wasn't just like one spasm. It wasn't like, okay, we've locked up, we're good. good at that point you know where you're at I've had those before we all had I think in our lives we have a sporadic moment where you have a thing this was now it's happening now it's happening now it's happening now like it was continuous nerve spasm I was like it was a spiral for me it was it was a point where i had dark thoughts i was just like i can't live my life like this so i understood really at that point the first time depression hit me and i couldn't reframe it as being positive i couldn't say this is put a positive spin on it there was

nothing so i had the mental thing so i was getting i kind of signed up for for a good uh for to be someone you have to experience certain things to be able to speak on it and i get that now so it's like okay well if you come here to to to on mission to do this you're gonna have to feel pain physically you're gonna have to feel heartbreak you're gonna have to feel anxiety and abandonment of of your body you're gonna have to feel all these things and then i hope that you get to a point where you get the memo which I've now fully understood the memo I don't need to be doing deadlifts and I don't need to be training like the way I trained before I can stay healthy

and more importantly what people enjoyed from me was music that it never had changed and I realized that from when I came back to London it was like people just want to hear music and they were cool they were just happy and this version of me and I love all the other versions because they all played a part this isn't a judgment thing like oh yeah well we always tend to be like yeah and the album comes out you're like yeah it's no good anymore this is the one no they all played a part to me sitting here today with you and being able to break down things and unpack things and as a as a as a man now to be open enough to say i know what depression feels like i speak differently on things now and the more i can open up and speak on the pain that i felt and that back thing ran for years it was like a couple years three years i was like and even i mean even to the day i'll

put my hands up I'm still working out like do you know me we do we do surgery do we not do we like I'm it's it's dialed down incredibly but it was a defining moment it's pivotal to me and it just was like whoa like I said depression you'll have dark thoughts dark Dark thoughts. You'll start having thoughts. So you're like, if this pain can continuously goes on like this, then I can't, it sounds crazy for me to say this because I'm like the nicest guy and you're so positive

and you're like, how could it? But I was like, I just can't live like that. I can't live like this. So you start not thinking about ways that you would say, take your life or to dip out, but you start having thoughts of something has to happen. Like this pain is intolerable.

I can't even style it out. There's nothing for it. And I think that that, when it started to dial down and we've done it from injections and all different kinds of things, conservatively and strengthening the multifidus and the paraspinals and the glutes i know my body so well now it got me back into my body more importantly i start to understand the mechanics of how my body works i never really listen to things you know you get a little ache and a pain

or you get a little thing telltale sign that's 10 years ago you got a blowout and then it blows out again and you didn't listen. You keep going. All it does, it just amps up the sound till you get the one. You got the memo now? Okay, cool. Now you've got the memo. That's how the universe works. So I'm really in tune with my body.

When it starts telling me stuff, I'm like, I need to check for this early because I don't want that five-year thing and the thing's going to let me know the hard way. It's dialed down, thank God, but all part of the plan because it's put me in a place where i can physically go out there and do my shows like i love i can go out there and perform like i love i don't need to be putting the extra working in a gym to satisfy anything that's i can

go swimming i can move my body and i and i can the things i can dial it up and we can get whatever would you will be looking for but who is it for it's not for anyone anymore i don't need that but you are back you're back in the uk now back to the uk back in the uk um and you said this you said this quote you said to a lot of people i'm at my destination i've arrived i'm back but no i'm still on my journey and i'm not taking my foot off the gas. Now that phrase, foot on the gas, right? It kind of sounds, it has hints of a former Craig. Yeah, when you even said foot off the gas here,

I don't know what day I was saying that or what I was feeling. It didn't resonate. Yeah, when you said it to me then, I knew exactly as you were going to say it, like what's this foot on the gas thing? Because that would suggest that you're headstrong, running to it.

Running for something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get the sentiment, but then also the phrase, the terminology is a little bit troubling, right? Yeah, yeah. It's like, take the foot off the gas. Just relax.

For the save your petrol. Just calm yourself. Stay, sometimes staying still weirdly enough it's actually the one i recognize when i stayed still and the world moves it's like wow pandemic yeah that i've got to say had for for everything and the pain it caused and the people who lost their lives and families that were that were suffering so deeply and still are um when you look at just how it was a pause on the whole world and it just had people recognizing that one they had to relinquish control because

it got to a point where i can't control this so okay break open the monopoly board let's let's let's have a game then all of a sudden back into kid back into the child again the child was seen play started to happen and as much as like we we we all like to say that we need to be the thing of doing doing doing but sometimes doing nothing don't don't don't think that the world isn't working for you behind the scenes yeah when you're doing nothing like having a good night's sleep resting trust me for all the working out in the gym and all those kind of things the rest was the actual thing where all the growth happened so why would that be no different for the way that we are when let me let me sleep on this let me slow down and man it's a blessing to see someone as inspired and conscious as you putting it out there and allowing people like

myself to come through speak our truth have people have a platform to speak and feel open and not feel like they're boxed in having to kind of got the media training here have to be open out because that's what we need we've done that the old patriarchal system is crashing down it's not working anymore no one wants to divide and conquer and fight it ain't gonna work we want love we want a heart-based relationship so that failed us right we tried that and it failed us it failed deeply man yeah

it really did and as we look forward you've got this album coming out which I'm really excited about called 22 and it's coming out on the 24th of June

this year yeah talk to me you know throughout this it's been 22 years as well since you your first

first album first album yeah so 22 years later your album 22 comes out what can i expect from this what what is the inspiration what is the the art the creativity the pain what is the what is what is it okay so we know born to do it was was the was my baby it broke out everything for me it was the moment where everything I built up into that point it was me getting the the golden ticket let's say it's the golden ticket we're entering into the the chocolate factory now excited but not the ending right then I had to go through life a little and now I'm

landing at this place in my life where and during the pandemic gave me a lot of time to write a lot of songs got a studio at home so I just I was writing a lot of songs and I had no rush it felt like how I was when I made my first album if I wanted to do a verse today cool if not I'm gonna go downstairs to the kitchen and maybe I'll throw on a movie and maybe I'll come back up I was grateful that I had that and privileged to be able to do that and to make home as productive as if I wanted it to be or as relaxed I want want it to be. It feels like it has all the, it has all the feels. It feels like it has all the feels of my first album, Born To Do It.

I feel like the kid again. And I keep using the word feel because I think that's the most important. That's my, that's the only thing I can really gauge thing. How am I feeling? I've got big sub speaker in my, in my new, in my,

in my home in, in, in London. Again, same thing. Literally, I got to, I literally just patterned the same thing with a couple of blue lights to make it just Same thing. Literally, I got to, I literally just patterned the same thing

with a couple of blue lights to make it just look a little bit like, I would say 2.0 version of the same, but same big speaker. I can play it loud. I've had people come over and I've said, you need to understand what bass is. Like really,

because they think they know what bass is. You get a little Sonos system and it's all cool. Got a little couple of subs. No, no, no, no, no. Listen to this. And you get that little sonar system and it's all cool got a little couple subs no no no listen to this and you get that it's different so i feel like i've got the r&b on there i've got the the garage on there i've got songs that i feel that weave a beautiful journey of where i'm at now i feel i'm speaking on things that it's coming from a place where i can still have the lingo and

the languaging that doesn't set you off as being like oh you were like in the 2000s and you're but no one says that anymore no one's saying tipsy in the club anymore no one's even really saying getting wavy anymore it's sort of like a bit a couple years back you know what's the new so working with young artists working with young fresh songwriters they'll give me languaging that allows me to get my messaging across but in a way that it can get the most broadest kind of reach I just feel like we've yeah I don't want to gas it because it feels like every artist does that right yeah it's just it feels really true to where I'm at right now and I've got I listen to it and I'm excited to

listen back to this album and as I have done since really the following my intuition album since I came back 2016 did that one time is now and this one but this one feels like with that I'm a journeyman that's the the cover album cover is me on a journey and I feel like that journeyman of just 22 years in now and as I said to the Willy Wonka element I feel like Charlie who's now going through the test he got a little caught up which if you clock it was his grandpa who kind of got him to take that fizzy lifting drink and he started to go up into the thing it wasn't really Charlie he was calm he was actually being the good one of course it was his granddad that kind of going

right to get to the end where the everlasting gobstopper part where he has a choice to sell himself out go sell it for 50 000 pounds i think to the the competitor chocolate maker of slugworth or does he go back and put it back on willie wonka's desk and do the right thing knowing he's going away with nothing i feel like i'm at that place where I'm in, I've created an album and I'm willing to, I'm willing to trade in all of the things that I'd up until this point, this pretense that maybe I had behind the scene that people didn't really, there's always getting 80% of me, but there was a 20% and that's enough or 10% of me.

That's not, it's enough. It's like the, the princess and the pea, trust me, it's underneath there and it will keep getting you. It's like the thorn in the foot. It's like, it doesn't have to be big. It's not some big drama, but it's enough it's like the uh the princess and the pea trust me it's underneath there and it will keep getting you it's like the thorn in the foot it's like it doesn't have to be big it's not some big drama but it's getting you right i want to pull the thorn out i want to find the pea all right i want to i want to say i want to sleep on my night in my mattress where i'm not feeling

slightly uncomfortable because i know there's something underneath there's there's a needle in the haystack and i don't want i know it's in there yeah we gotta find it I'm at that stage where I'm dropping this album that I feel I've put the Velocity and Gobstopper back and I have no idea if Willy Wonka's gonna turn around and say Charlie you did it I knew you would do it I had to test you I had to test you it's like what what the chocolate no more than the chocolate what is it you got the whole chocolate factory you got the whole chocolate factory and his family can move in and everyone can be part of it. And that's how I'm feeling now.

Everyone can be part of this. This is different now. So I'm excited, man. I'm excited. And do you know, I was excited before, but hearing your description of it and feeling your energy about where this is coming from,

and it's coming from that place of like your intuition, your wisdom and your maturity. And over those 22 years, all of that unbelievable twisting journey that you've been on to create a record now um which in which sort of collects all of that wisdom and all of that emotion and truth and pain and experience is really something to be um excited about as a as a craig david fan so thank you for for giving us another project. I've not heard it yet.

They wouldn't let me hear it, but I can't wait. I'll listen. Do you know what? On the real, not just the, because I always feel like these moments have always

more than, like you've done your moment together, but I just feel there's a friendship building here anyway. So we'll hook up and I'll play the album and we'll get some food and we'll vibe.

So it's calm. You'll be well ahead of the game. No, do you know, from the minute you walked in the door, I felt like I'd known you a long time. And that's a credit to you because I meet a lot of people here, right? So sometimes people come in and maybe they're a little bit colder and like that,

you know, there's a lot of things going on in their lives, which I'm unaware of. So I've got to have empathy for that. But the minute you walked in through the door, it was like you were my brother. And it was like we'd known each other for a long time. And that's, that's honestly,

it's a credit to you. So thank you. Thank you so much for your time. We have a closing tradition on this podcast, which is the previous guest writes, and the next guest, a question. Nice.

So I'm good. And I don't get to see what it is until I open the book. Nice. Nice. So the previous, and this is a very good one. In fact, very fitting.

The previous guest wrote, if you could whisper in the ear of your 14 year old self what would you whisper that's good that's good that's good listen craig i know this might freak you out because you're hearing a voice in your ear right now but trust me i'm I'm a little older version of you and everything you're about to do right now is going to change your life in the most beautiful way and I want you just to enjoy every moment and know that there will be times that will be quite hard but know that I'm here know that I'm always there holding your hand along the way and I promise you that once you get through them, the feeling you will have will be like the euphoria you are just about to experience in a couple of years time.

So get ready and trust me, the crowd are going to go off when they hear something soon. Okay. Love to you, my man. Oh, it was like a prayer. Thank you so much. Thank you, honestly. It's a huge honor and your vulnerability

and openness you don't know you won't ever get to see the impact it has i probably will i'll get the comments and the messages and you will as well but the the impact of you being being self-aware enough and and man enough to be vulnerable i think is is really something which i i applaud you for because you just don't really you know the impact you're going to have on a lot of young men specifically is profound and yeah, long lasting. So thank you. Thank you, brother. And feel is mutual, man. Genuinely appreciate it. Thank you.