Words by Christopher Kevin Au. Craig David’s album ‘The Time Is Now’ releases on January 26, 2018.
The year 2000 was a time of great excitement, progression and uncertainty.
Sydney hosted the Summer Olympic Games, where we cheered on Geoff Huegill in the 50 metre butterfly race, long before he was outed as a cocaine connoisseur. The Playstation 2 was released, becoming the precursor for countless hours of button-mashing on Grand Theft Auto to steal cars and run over pedestrians. The Russian Presidential elections saw Vladmir Putin rise to power, solidifying his iron clasp on the vast European country. Even the year’s opening seconds were bathed in widespread fear, as the Y2K bug threatened to dismount the first world into a vortex of malfunctioning computers and relentless, hellish flames.
But while we escaped the Y2K scare relatively unscathed, the real saving grace of 2000 slid smoothly into our earholes in the form of Craig David’s debut album, Born To Do It. Blending UK garage and lovesick R&B, the album debuted at Number. 1 on the UK charts, thrusting the then 19-year-old Craig into global spotlight, miles from his beginnings on pirate radio and the Southampton estates.
It’s no wonder that the world fell in love with Craig David’s first full-length: It’s audio silk dyed in pensive, greyscale shades, sending listeners into a slow-motion haze of heartbreak and relationships that just weren’t meant to be. Somehow, amongst all the madness that arrived in 2000, Craig was there to pat us on the back and tell us that everything would be okay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3imO7PFU5cI
In the years that followed, Craig strayed from his breakthrough sounds and never reached the heights of his debut album, but this decade brought a revived interest in the UK star. Soulection producer Sango injected Southern flavour into his debut single ‘Fill Me In’ with a remix in 2012, while Justin Bieber sampled the same track on ‘Recovery’ the year after. In 2015, Drake was mistakenly identified as Craig David at Wimbledon by sports reporter Ian Abrahams, which may be the world’s biggest journalistic blunder since I somehow got hired as an Editor. Still, with his assertive hairline and romantic crooning, Drake seems at least partly inspired by Craig, to the point where the OVO don gave him a shoutout on 2007 track ‘Closer.’
Later in 2015, Craig delivered a rousing live version of ‘Fill Me In’ over the wonky production on Jack Ü anthem ‘Where Are Ü Now,’ which was enough to have Big Narstie and the Kurupt FM crew pogo-moshing in the BBC studios. The footage spread like wildfire, giving Craig his first online viral moment without memes, cute puppies or a Harlem Shake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0By6i82azk
Fuelled by nostalgia and buoyed by a global interest in UK sounds like grime, the stage was set for Craig David’s return. Articles like Rise Craig David, Your Time is Now and Is The Craig David Revival Upon Us? began circulating online, and voila: Craig released Following My Intuition in 2016, which became his first Number. 1 album since Born To Do It a whopping 16 years earlier.
It’s a plot that could have been plucked from an R&B fairytale, and while Craig’s commercial performance has come full circle, the same can be said for his creative process. “That cyclical thing has come back around where I feel like the sixteen year old kid again, with even more enthusiasm and more passion,” he says. “If you can get back to the basics, which I’ve been able to do, it’s the most empowering feeling to have that.”
It’s my second time interviewing Craig, and the first since his career catapulted back into mainstream conversation. He’s filled with wide-eyed enthusiasm and top-notch banter, and it’s easy to see why: He’s on the R&B Fridays tour across Australia, has metallic gold designer sneakers personally made for him, and is already planning to release his next album The Time Is Now in early 2018, with current single ‘Heartline’ doing the rounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-1BRLMwQ-A
“I want to make a very UK R&B record like I did with Born To Do It – only now is that lane opening up. A lot of stuff I’m hearing is samples from tracks from back in the day that are being used on dance records. But in terms of actually a straight up R&B record, that for me is a lane where it’s taking a risk, because everyone at the moment is sort of on a slightly different wave. They haven’t fully embraced it,” he says. “And that’s what this album’s all about. It’s like I’ve just gone knee-deep into it and just been like boom, this is the vibe.”
The Time Is Now is also set to reign in some of Craig’s favourite “star quality” collaborators with including emerging grime emcee AJ Tracey, who may be testing Craig’s efficiency in the booth. “AJ Tracey for me is more than just a grime artist, it’s like he’s hip-hop in a way that he writes as well,” he says. “It’s so fast in the studio. He’s already onto the finish the first sixteen, and I’m like, ‘Bro, I’m just getting the verse down! Slow down!'”
The album will also see him team up once more with Kaytranada – who Craig says has a “Pharrell element” to his production – as well as American rapper Goldlink, adding to Craig’s early collaborations with Stateside hip-hop staples likes Fat Joe, Twista, DJ Premier and Mos Def.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJoAoqZ1Sso
With Craig’s prime spot on the R&B Fridays tour consisting of stadium shows across Australia, it’s acted as a testing ground to preview new and unrelased material from The Time Is Now. Craig is playing his TS5 set, which involves him DJing, singing and rapping while he glides across the stage like an eloquent madman. Despite his dizzying multi-tasking during the set, never once does he look flustered as he tackles a wide range of tunes from yesteryear and tomorrow.
“I used to play ‘Fill Me In’ or ‘Rewind’ in my set and see if the crowd’s feeling it or not. Go back to the studio, tweak it, come back the next week, play it again in my set,” he says. “I’m doing the same thing with TS5. I’m playing tunes from the new album, but people wouldn’t know that it’s from the album. I love it because I’m like, “Okay they’re getting the chorus of that, they’re feeling the vibe, there’s a little head nod, okay cool.'”
And while Craig may be returning to his R&B roots on The Time Is Now, his rollercoaster career has given him fresh insights on the power of some wonderfully-penned R&B. “Back then, it was about me wanting to make tunes, go in my bedroom and turn up loud in my flat. Now, when you see someone who says that ‘this song changed my life’ or ‘this is the song that we met to’… You’re thinking that this is more than just statistics and numbers sold,” he says.
“I’m talking about when you get a record played on radio nationally, and you’re thinking that you are subconsciously impacting the whole of a country on one play.”
