Craig David on 7 Days, selling mixtapes, and his love of performing in Southampton

Yahoo

21-06-2025

Craig David has a notoriously busy week, but luckily made time to talk to the Echo about his homecoming show this weekend.
The Southampton local who shot to fame overnight in the early 2000s has long graced the RnB scene.
He consistently champions is home city too, previously backing the bid for Southampton to be UK City of Culture and praising the pool of local musical talent.
The 44-year-old singer, songwriter and DJ said he feels a 'flood of nostalgia' every time he reaches the roundabout at the top of The Avenue on approach to Southampton.
'The feeling of being home just hits every single time…being able to wrap that all up and bring it to the stage is important', he said.
'Specifically in Southampton, some of my tunes and songs mean a lot to people if I play them, for example my first song with Artful Dodger, that would mean a lot.
'People will say 'I remember when he did it on the mixtape and used to sell it at the barbers'.
'I am very excited and I never take the big hug and the love I get every time I come back to Southampton for granted.'
David will be taking to the Summer Sessions stage on Guildhall Square on Saturday night, a big event that is proving popular year on year.
READ MORE: Rag 'n' Bone Man opens Southampton Summer Sessions with a bang
But for David, showcasing local talent is better than ever thanks to all the music venues in the city.
He described the music industry as very 'London centric' in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
He added: 'Growing up in Southampton I had the time and space to nurture my sound.
'We were on the pulse in being so close to London, which is why I think the music scene growing in Southampton was so poignant as it opened up the floodgates for musicians in other cities.
'The scene now in Southampton is thriving.'
Speaking on his headliner gig on Saturday night, David said he is 'adamant' that he always wants to bring his classic songs to the stage, including 7 Days, the same way they were recorded.
'As it will be a TS5 DJ set, it will give me the freedom to interject with the original, do a remix, throw in an instrumental from another song, which is going back to what I did when I was DJ'ing on the south coast and making mixtapes in my bedroom', he said.
And on the subject of 7 Days, it felt right to ask if, writing the song now, whether he would change any of the activities 25 years since its release.
He said: 'That song lives in the space of me being 17 years old, looking out my bedroom window, thinking how my life would go down.
'It is the gift that keeps giving.'
'I was not being overtly vulgar in that song – I lived with my mum and had my grandma around so I needed it to have a filter and be cool', David joked.