Born to a carpenter and a Superdrug shop assistant, Craig Ashley David appeared into the world on one wet and dull spring day in 1981*. Raised on the Holyrood Estate, located less than a mile from Southampton Ferry terminal and the National Oceanography Centre, by his mother Tina and father George until their divorce. Superdrug’s Tina was of Jewish heritage from her grandfather and converted grandmother, and related to the founders of the Accurist watchmakers. Doubtlessly it was this family history that made him so inspired to document his activities by time. The music in his blood came from his Grenadian father George; when he wasn’t knocking up a few garden benches, he played bass in a reggae band called Ebony Rockers.
Craig spent his youth learning about oceanography (presumably), playing knock down ginger (presumably) and pursuing a footballing career as keeper for the Bellemoor Boys School team. Craig wasn’t distracted by silly sports for long though, with his music heritage proving too strong a lure. He started DJing at local youth clubs and writing his own music, gaining his first glimpse of the limelight when he was invited to work on a B-side for Baby Spice’s personal bit of spice (Jade Jones)’s R&B boy band Damage. A few more local DJ sessions and it wasn’t long before he met Pete Devereux and Mark Hill, better known as the Oliver Twist-inspired garage band ‘Artful Dodger’, also from Southampton.
First featuring on the somewhat unknown track ‘Something’ with some signature ‘mm-mmms’, Craig finally hit the big time in 1999 with epic anthem ‘Re-rewind (The Crowd says Bo Selecta)’ featuring the first of many self name drops in the memorable line ‘Craig David all over your...’**. For all of the embarrassingly ignorant out there, Bo Selecta means Good (Bo) DJ Selection (Selecta), so like a shout out to the DJ that he’s picked a good tune. Craig would prefer that we don’t mention the song title’s later use in Leigh Francis’ Channel 4 show so swiftly moving on to the song’s placing in the UK charts at number 2, encouraging our star to re-release the track on his own album ‘Born To Do It’ a year later. Experts even consider this song the point at which garage music entered the mainstream. Craig David; groundbreaking ‘ye-eeeah’ and ‘mm-mmm’er but also a genre defining maestro.
Re-rewind was the platform from which Craig David launched himself into super stardom, with one hit after another. First came ‘Fill Me In’, a track with I’ve only this week realised is not about Craig worrying his girlfriend is cheating on him, but in fact is a pained cry of woe at his new lady’s interfering parents questioning why she changed her outfit from white to black. Aged just 19, this song blasted straight to number one ahead of ‘Flowers’ by Sweet Female Attitude of ‘I’ll bring you flowers in the pouring ra-aa-ain’ fame.
Next came track of the decade and probable*** highlight of Craig’s early career ‘7 Days’. A track which documents his quick-working seduction of some 24 year old cinnamon honey lurking in a London subway who responds to his advances with the line ‘I’d love to rendezvous’. It’s called 7 Days, but really, after a brief meeting on Monday at...oh...what time, Craig? (Must have been about quarter past three) they don’t meet until...wait, what did you suggest, Craig? (A date with me tomorrow at nine), so the seduction really takes place in a much smaller time scale. Unless of course, they were msn messaging in between the first meeting and the Tuesday rendezvous and Craig couldn’t fit this to rhyme. Needless to say, this song set the standard for all UK youth courting going forward. In Southampton circles, it’s deemed failure if it takes a guy any longer than two days to get into a girl’s pants. The Craig David Curse.
Alex Turner said "One night me and Matt did a duet of Craig David - we made Serge from Kasabian throw up."Despite this success, his popularity seemed to wane and with the exception of 2007‘s Bowie sampled ‘Hot Stuff (Let’s Dance)’, later singles and albums struggled to hit reach the top 10, and in the case of single ‘Officially Yours’, the top 150.
But that’s just the music. We all listen to and love that already. What you really want to know who is the man behind the Craig David mask? Well, that’s Leigh Francis of Bo Selecta fame. I’ve not watched the show because it looked well shit but apparently some people did and it had a negative impact on, if not Craig’s career, at least his mental wellbeing. As the R&B legend himself said:
"Inside it was absolutely pissing me off and hurtful beyond belief. There were times when I thought I just want to knock this guy out".
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| Craig David looking angry, and a bit wary |
But Craig took the higher ground and didn’t resort to fisticuffs, instead choosing to focus on more worthy pursuits. In 2010, he became Goodwill Ambassador against Tuberculosis and in 2011 undertook a desert trek for Red Nose Day, alongside Dermot O’Leary, Lorraine Kelly and Nadia Sawalha. In 2012, following a fan video request here, Craig David surprised the video creators and self-declared 'number one fans' by attending their wedding. This humanitarian and fulfilling work seemed to spark something in Craig David, and in between hosting and DJing a weekly party at his own penthouse in Miami called ‘TS5’ and aired on KISS radio, mingling with Fern Cotton and Justin Bieber (the former is a mate, the latter is a HUGE Craig David fan6) he resumed his musical endeavours and was signed to Universal Music in January 2013.
He revealed his new physique (see below) and announced his world tour in February, starting with Jakarta (Indonesia obviously a big fanbase of garage music), then a few Australian shows before heading back west to mainland Europe, hometown Southampton and a final show at the IndigO2 in London. 2013 is Craig’s year. Be there.
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| This is what four shags a week will get you. |
*http://www.london-weather.eu/article.120.html
**Can’t help but feeling Craig sounds a bit like a rash here?
***I say probable, as Craig David is only 31 at the time of writing and so has plenty of time to produce material of an even higher calibre
****Street lingo for ‘flavour’
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