Back in the hood

Craig David thinks he might have more street cred if he was from a Chicago ghetto, with Playboy models in his videos and a few drugs charges. But even though the R & B singer is growing more confident and opinionated, music works best as escapism, he tells Brian Boyd.

It's not that the manager of Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club disapproves of dancing; it's just that he doesn't see very much of it. The legendary Soho club, in London, is more of a sit-back-and-silently-appreciate-the-chord-progressions-of-the-virtuoso-jazz-guitarist type of place than one where fans dance on tabletops and shout sexually charged remarks at the stage.

Such is the scene, though, when Craig David, the British R&B singer, uses the tiny, low-ceilinged venue for a series of fan-club-only gigs to launch his new album. The Ronnie Scott's managers look mildly startled as devotees climb over tables to get nearer to a singer who has been acclaimed by Bono and Elton John.

David can sure work a room. Gym fit and immaculately turned out, he has a sweet, soulful voice that makes his audience swoon. There's no talk of bitches or hos, nor any other macho references, just a young man who explains before one of his new songs how being brought up by his single mother shaped his attitude to women.

"I have huge respect for women, and when I write songs about them I never feel the need to be vulgar about them," he says. "And, for what's it worth, I don't like seeing young women pushing prams when they're still in their teens. I like educated women, independent women." It's a deal clincher: Ronnie Scott's loves him.

The 26-year-old not only does the smooth soul numbers but also showcases some impressive Jamaican-style toasting, and, in deference to his surroundings, unleashes some remarkable hip-hop-style scat singing.

Despite selling millions of CDs on both sides of the Atlantic, and having one of the best soul voices going, David has serious credibility problems. These reached a nadir at the 2001 Brit music awards, when he was nominated in six categories on the back of his breakthrough debut album, Born to Do It, but won in none.

Other musicians reacted angrily. First, Elton John walked on to the stage and announced: "If there is a better singer in England than Craig David, then I am Margaret Thatcher." Then, when U2 picked up an award for making an outstanding contribution to music, Bono dedicated the song One to him; at the end of the song, U2 did an impromptu performance of David's hit Walking Away.

Perhaps he suffers from being too nice, as some claim he is. He's from unfashionable Southampton. He doesn't drink, smoke, do drugs or swear. He says his biggest vice is ice cream, and when the first royalty cheques came in he bought his mother a house and himself a modest car. He was referred to in the "cool" music press as a virgin and gay - he says he is neither - and he was mercilessly lampooned on the Channel 4 comedy show Bo' Selecta.

He would tell interviewers about his "principles and morals" and describe how his parents, who separated when he was a child, instilled values in him that kept him away from drugs and crime in the council estate he grew up on. The music press wanted to know about whiskey and whoring, and he would only talk about the importance of hard work and a good education.

There was also an incident that David, whose mother is white and father is black, decided to speak out about. When he first toured in the US, urban radio stations there advised him to ditch his white guitarist for reasons of "authenticity". "That incident appalled me," he says. "I was going to cancel all the shows, I was so upset. I could not believe that in this century people could think like that. The belief was that the guitarist didn't have the right prowess because of his colour. The thing is, he is a far better R&B guitarist than the people who are supposed to be really urban and really out there."

None of this could disturb the path of his career. His first three albums sold millions, and singles such as Fill Me In, 7 Days and Walking Away took up almost permanent residence in the charts.

Talking just before one of his Ronnie Scott's shows, he wonders aloud if he would be treated differently were his background different: if he was from a Chicago ghetto, if he was blinged up, if he had Playboy models in his videos, if he had been arrested for drink-driving and possession of drugs.

"At the time, when I was 'snubbed' at the Brit Awards ceremony, and I had all these big-name stars fighting my corner, there was even talk about racism towards me," he says. "But that's complete rubbish. The simple reason is that, because I was nominated in so many categories, my votes were spread too thinly. I really wasn't that concerned about the whole thing, but it was nice to get that support from those big names."

He believes his race is important only in so far as he is a more realistic representation of the way black people conduct themselves than the cartoonish images you can pick up from listening to certain black rap artists.

"I'm R&B, I'm not rap," he says, "but when I hear all that ghetto talk, and all those crude references to women, I'm wondering how real it is, how actually 'ghetto' these people are, and just how accurate a portrayal of black working people they are giving.  I know I'm different, in that I grew up in a small English city, idolising Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, but all I can do is write and sing about my own experiences - and not pretend I'm anything I'm not."

The key to his music, he says, is the records his Caribbean-born father played him when he was growing up. "Dad was big into reggae music and big into a genre of reggae called lovers' rock," he says. Lovers' rock was at a remove from reggae's politicised Rastafarian core, and it emphasised a smoother, more sensuous side of the music. One of its best-known practitioners is Gregory Isaacs. For David, this is why his songs are usually relationship-based and eschew social or political comment.

"It comes down to what a singer's role is supposed to be and where you want to draw the line. However, I will be the first to admit that I have perhaps been guilty of being a bit too PC in the past and, yes, maybe sometimes a bit bland. I think I have rolled with things rather than challenged them, simply because I was, at the time, the new kid on the block.

"I find that now, with a bit more confidence and being a bit more adult, I am getting more opinionated, and on this new album there is a social-commentary song, called Top of the Hill, which is basically about what sort of guidance the people at the top of the hill - for example, our political leaders - are giving to people at the so-called bottom of the hill.

"But, you know, I still believe that music can work best as a form of escapism. There are important global issues around now, of course, but I just don't think that the people sitting in Ronnie Scott's tonight want those issues flung back into their face by an R&B singer."

BONO AND ME

"It's no secret that one of my biggest singles, Walking Away, sounds similar to U2's One, which was written years before my song. When I was writing Walking Away I thought it would be a really good idea to include a sample of One, but I couldn't get permission from U2's publishing company to use it. Later on I met Bono, and I told him how I had tried to clear the sample, and he just explained that the publishers very rarely release samples of their songs. Anyone can do a cover version of a U2 song, but a sample is a different story. But, in the strange way these things turn out, U2, at the Brit Awards ceremony, ending up using bits of Walking Away when they were playing One, so the two songs were eventually united - except they did it, not me."

BOWIE AND ME

"The first single off the new album is a song called Hot Stuff, which features a sample of David Bowie's Let's Dance. It's always nerve-racking waiting for clearance for these things, because the artist has to hear what you've done with their song, and how you've used it, before they decide to give permission or not. I know I'm very protective of my own music, and I would hate people mucking about with it. Because of my age I hadn't realised just how big a hit Let's Dance had been for Bowie in the 1980s, and I also never knew that he wasn't really in a great place when he wrote it. I eventually got a note back from Bowie, saying he was cool with how I had incorporated his song into mine - so at least, if nobody else likes it, I can always say that David Bowie thinks it's cool."

Trust Me, Craig David's new album, is released on November 9th