Craig David’s penthouse is where extremes meet. Impeccable, tidy, spacious,
zen; excessive, bling, hundreds of boxed trainers and a filing system for
jeans – Dolce, Diesel. A home gym, one balcony with a silver fountain and
black astro turf, another the size of a tennis court in green astro turf.
All the rooms are neutral-coloured with accents of, say, dark fur matched
with black Lindt truffles, red vases teamed with red Lindt truffles. In
every room except the personal gym there are gigantic bowls of Lindt or the
purple blue of Cadbury’s Chocolate Eclairs.
Chocolate is one of David’s addictions, a legacy from being a fat bullied
child when his Jewish mother and grandmother fed him love in the form of
sweets. His home says all you need to know about him: obsessive, insecure,
rich, with a need to please. There are banks of flat-screen TVs on the wall
amid pictures inspired by his favourite film, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate
Factory.
We are in a sumptuous room of suede and fur. “I eat chocolate, I am very
excessive. I am crazy for clean sneakers. I try to keep everything clean.”
Indeed, there’s not a thumbprint or a speck of dust. “I have a tendency to
buy large quantities of chocolate so I can watch everyone else eating it. I
was fat as a kid because I just kept eating. Then music replaced the eating.
Now, if I eat a whole bowl of Eclairs I know I have to burn it off.”
He wants me to have an Eclair even though we’ve just had lunch at the Ivy. He
had two starters, bang-bang chicken and crispy duck, then we shared a roast
chicken. He eats and he works out. He’s gratified when you notice he doesn’t
look like Craig David. He is buff, broad and practically hairless. Gone are
the trademark curls, the beanie, replaced with a No 1 haircut and laced with
a No 1 haircut and no facial decoration. He needed to change. Put a full
stop. He had become known only for being the rubber-faced caricature in
Channel 4’s Bo’ Selecta!, created by Leigh Francis, aka Avid Merrion. Every
time he set foot outside there would be voices going “Craaaig Daaavid”,
spoofing the Yorkshire accent Merrion gave him.
Seven years ago he started out, cool but fresh. He sang of love and
let’s-not-have-sex songs. His first track, made with Artful Dodger when he
was still living on a Southampton council estate, went: “Re-rewind, when the
crowd say bo selecta.” How those words haunt him now.
Firstly people thought he was gay. Then you couldn’t open a tabloid without
seeing a random girl’s story and a headline spoofing his song Seven Days,
along the lines of: “Met him on a Monday, texted him on Tuesday, had sex
with him on Wednesday…” Models, bit-part actresses, other clichés – all of
this was sent up ruthlessly by a man in a rubber face. David’s reaction was
to pretend it didn’t bother him. Inside he was raging. “The whole Bo’
Selecta! thing was killing me for a while because this idiot had a cult
following and I was the main caricature.”
For a man who likes to control every speck of dust, his life was spiralling.
He was being depicted as the ultimate of uncool. He was ricocheting from
woman to woman. And his grandmother who brought him up had died. “What was
really pissing me off was that with everything that was going on, which he
wasn’t privy to, he was having a hell of a laugh doing his thing. Every
single day I was being reminded of that show. First of all you go, ‘I’ll
ride this because I’m stronger than this.’ Then it gets to a point where you
think, ‘What can I do to stop it?’ ”
His record sales were plummeting. His first album, Born to Do It, sold 7.5m.
His third album, The Story Goes…, hardly registered a hit and sold under 2m.
“It never really got as far as legal proceedings. All I knew was that people
were associating me with this guy with a massive head, a northern accent and
a bird on his arm.”
Francis enjoyed the absurd by pairing David with a kestrel, morphing him with
the boy from the 1960s film Kes. “During that period I was thinking, ‘I’m a
caricature of myself. I’ve got my beard shaved in a certain way and putting
on my beanie cap. Should I change because of it?’ ”
He didn’t want to look like he was bothered so he stayed the same, not really
knowing where or how to go as he now felt he was no longer an artist but a
caricature. “I thought, ‘We’ll ride it. But now you are putting me in a
position where I don’t know where else to go.’ 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. And then I met him and did his show.” He
had been advised that that would look cool. He knew that it wasn’t right.
“After the show I said, ‘You’re an idiot.’ No one really heard me because it
was just me and him in the hallway. ‘All the laughs are on me so don’t stand
there telling me I’m sorry and continuing to do your thing.’ He was all
sheepish. I did the show to look PC. I didn’t want people to think, ‘Craig’s
reacting to it,’ because then they would think, ‘How can we get up Craig’s
nose even more?’ So I did it, but I wasn’t happy about it.”
It’s as if he’s been bottling it in, guarding it, and now that he’s admitted
his hurt he just can’t stop talking about it. Leigh Francis said at the
time, “I didn’t like it that Craig David got pissed off and I didn’t want
him thinking that wanker ruined my career. A lot of people think that I
ruined him, but I don’t write his songs. He does.”
His new collection of songs on Trust Me shows a determination and polish and
real soulfulness that has come as a reaction to being taunted. He found his
groove and became the musician again, not the puppet. “I was really bothered
by it. My personal life was being affected by it. Normally I’m very chilled,
but every time I went out people were saying Craig David in a northern
voice. I’d say to them, 'Do you think you’re the first person to say that?’
I got satisfaction then because everyone piped down and felt ashamed. It got
to a point, though, where I was able to close off. Ultimately I knew I had
to reassociate people with wanting to buy my records. I didn’t want people
to feel I was so not cool that they’d have to hide it. I knew I’d become a
joke. It kept me in no-man’s-land. The longer I didn’t do anything about it,
the more I personified what they made me. I kind of became the caricature.
So although it wasn’t a conscious decision to cut my hair, take the facial
hair off, I got to the point where I was ready to focus back on my music. So
I went to the other extreme. And after my grandmother passed away I trained
like a nutter with this ex-professional boxer who used to do security for
me.”
He’d run from Hampstead to Chelsea Football Club and back again, and work out
five days a week. Was the idea to change himself physically, make a new
start, or was it exorcising his grief? “A bit of both, to be honest. When I
felt weak, I could say I was doing this for my grandma. Maybe it took me
back to when I was a loony eating chocolate and I thought the guys with the
six-pack seemed to be having so much fun.
So maybe it did take me back to my childhood. I had insecurity then. I didn’t
like swimming lessons or going on holiday because I was overweight. People
would call me fatso.”
His grandmother used to feed him dessert before his supper, then dessert
again. His Jewish mother split up from his Grenadian father when he was
eight. He was an only child, thoughtful. They were not well off, even though
his mother came from an affluent family who owned a chain of chemists. But
David was an entrepreneur, recycling and selling things to his friends. He
had focus, self-preservation. Though many of his peers drifted into drugs
and crime, he never did.
He was well loved by his mother and grandmother. He thinks they felt sorry for
him because his father left, and comforted him with sweets. At school he was
bullied for his weight but says he always answered back. The bullying helped
create the drive. By the time he was 15 and DJing in clubs, he had filled
the void with records. “That was the new food, and I lost all the weight.”
By the time he was 19 he was selling out arenas and being nominated for Ivor
Novellos and Brits. He seemed suave, impeccable, with a velvet voice. He was
supposed to be the new George Michael. He’d worked hard to be the
super-groomed pop star, not the bullied fat kid.
Did the Bo’ Selecta! feel the same as the bullying? He hesitates. “Not too
much.” But I suspect it did. It took him down. The veneer was cracked, the
wound open. “Back then the feeling I had was just insecurity. Bo’ Selecta!
made me feel frustrated. I didn’t know how to turn it around, how to be
associated again with my music. I felt things were out of my control.” He
never likes things to be out of his control. Enjoying food then cancelling
that out with hefty workouts is the control-freak diet.
Bo’ Selecta! also regularly humiliated Mel B, Michael Jackson and Oprah
Winfrey. But it was the portrayal of David that seemed to strike a
particular chord. He was to Bo’ Selecta! what Vicky Pollard was to Little
Britain. The core of social stereotyping. David, to Francis, was a man who
had got above himself. He said once: “I just thought, ‘Craig David, stop
trying to be so cool.’ ” This must have hurt because David always suspected
he might not be cool. That was his downfall: he wanted to be.
“I don’t think I’m a dork. I can laugh at myself. But this
was a different kind of comedy. It wasn’t clever like Ricky Gervais or Eddie
Izzard.
“I just want to get on with my music and have people appreciate that I’m a
talented singer-songwriter. I have called this album Trust Me because on the
last album I think I was trying to please everybody. It was a mishmash of
ballads and up-tempo. None of it hung together. But now I’m saying, ‘Trust
me.’ I’m a 26-year-old writing songs that are age-appropriate.”
He knows he was an easy target for caricature. At 19 he said the
age-inappropriate mantra: he’d rather make music than make love. Hormones
raged. He controlled them, determining to put all his energy into music like
a boxer before a fight. Then he set about going to the other extreme. He
looks back on it a little bashfully. “I had that small-minded mentality of
being from Southampton. You know everyone. Suddenly I’m travelling and I’m
being offered the crème de la crème of people around the world. I never
thought for a minute I’d be looking at all these supermodels. And you think,
‘Wow.’ It was a misconception that I was such a ladies’ man and trying to
flaunt it. I was 21, 22, single and having fun. First of all there was the
gay thing, then there was an explosion of all these girls in the tabloids.
Often there were surprises to me.”
Surprises because supermodels were being offered on a plate. They were the new
Chocolate Eclairs. “Yes, I guess I milked it for a while.” And surprises
because often pictures of him and various women were morphed together on an
evening out that hadn’t happened. “That can cause crisis talks with your
girlfriend. If I’m in a relationship, I’m in it. I don’t f*** around.”
The new album is strewn with subtle regrets and yearning for the one that got
away. Any relationship he was in certainly didn’t last. Does he regret that
now? “The one that would have worked… I think my timing was off and it was
my fault. My grandmother passed away and I wanted to help my mum through it.
The person that had been her strength in so many ways had gone. I felt I had
to try and put this all back together. And then you start thinking clearly…
I thought it would be nice to be in a relationship and have someone who
could help me while I help my mother. I’m ready now for someone substantial.
I am searching for it. I’m trying to do things differently and let things
kind of build and brew for a while, whereas in the past I’d be headstrong,
just roll in.”
His last long-term relationship was two years ago with the South African model
Roxy Ingram. And before that a girl he met in Southampton. “Both of these
are getting married this year, which puts things in perspective for me. I
lost out on two amazing opportunities. The Southampton girl I liked because
she had come from the same place as me. She was down to earth. It was all
down to timing. I wasn’t ready to commit to either. I will learn from that.”
He has also had to learn the downside of the wannabe model. A couple have sold
stories. “I don’t want to be with somebody who’s all about, ‘Where can we be
seen together? What award ceremony is happening?’ I want somebody who is
ambitious and who wants to achieve.” He admits he may have done things a bit
wrong. He used to love putting out singles with the excuse of doing a video.
“I’d look through the casting, all the different girls, and I’d pick one. I
would pick out girls for all the wrong reasons and nothing ever came from
all those situations. They all look great on camera, but there was always
something a little bit wrong. I was fooling myself. I think I must have
grown up though. This time, I asked the director to pick whoever he thought
was best. Now I feel more at one with myself. I have a home that makes me
feel comfortable and an album I’m excited about, which I’ve been able
to make without people trying to influence me. I’m not a 26-year-old
pretending to be 50, writing all these ballads 24/7.”
He lays back into the comforting suede of one of his many sofas, still not
even tempted to reach out for a chocolate. He has probably always had
trouble feeling comfortable with himself and at last there is a sense that
he’s come to terms with that. Earlier this year a single, This Is the Girl,
with the hip rapper Kano, did well to rehabilitate him as the kind of artist
you are not ashamed to have on your iPod. There’s a sweetness and kindness
to him that remains unchanged.
With unselfconscious pride he gives me a tour of his bling palace. Several
living rooms. Bedrooms that look like Shrager hotel rooms, sparse,
interesting artwork. Gym to work off the chocolate, serious weights,
treadmill, plasma TV. A room that seems dedicated to boxes of white trainers
and a few boxes of sequined trainers. He doesn’t throw them away after
wearing them, they just have to be clean. Obsessive, extreme, vulnerable.
Himself once more.
Craig David’s album Trust Me is out on November 12
