Craig David worked in a record shop in Southampton, and I used to buy records in it. That’s about as close as it gets. I knew who he was. We weren’t mates. But you grow up in the same town and buy your records in the same shop. You feel like one of your own made it.
And he did make it. One of his first real breaks was with Artful Dodger, and one of the guys in that band went to my school. Then came Born to Do It, and suddenly a lad from our town was everywhere. He was still a teenager.
He’s another Southampton supporter too, so that’s one more reason to love him.
Built up, then knocked down
What happened next is the part most people remember. The parodies started. He was mocked on TV, or at least it felt that way to him. He ended up leaving the UK and living in the US for a while. Years later he came back and made a big success of it all over again.
I talked about this on a podcast back in 2019, in an episode about fear of failure. The way I see it, British culture can be like that. I put it like this: “We’ll build you up, and once your head’s too high, we’re just going to lop it off.”
So we end up scared of failing. And we’re scared of succeeding too, in case people decide we’ve got arrogant. Put both of those fears together and you get stuck. I said it plainly on that episode: “You’re going to be afraid to start.”
The daft thing is, the fear of getting too big for your boots is usually wasted. Most of the successful people I’ve met are as down to earth as they’ve always been. It’s the same fear that stops people posting on social media or putting their prices up. What if someone back home thinks they’ve changed?
Craig’s story is what it looks like when somebody gets through the other side of that.
What’s Your Vibe? is a bit different from most music books. It’s about him and his mindset. It’s about getting away when the noise got too much, finding himself, and staying connected to the music he loves. It’s part memoir and part guide.
The big idea is that your vibe is something you can choose and look after. You do that through self love, good boundaries and staying true to yourself. It sounds simple. Living it when the whole country is laughing at you is another thing.
I read it in October 2023 and gave it five stars. It’s a brilliant book.
It sits nicely next to my own book. In Done Beats Perfect there’s a whole chapter on love, and a lot of it is about self love. Without it, we tend to build a wall to stop other people getting in. Craig talks about the same thing from the other side: what happened when he started looking after himself first.
That’s worth sitting with for a minute. Most of us let our vibe get set for us. A comment online. A look from someone at work. One bad review we read over and over while the good ones get ignored. We hand the dial to whoever happens to be in the room.
Craig’s answer was to take the dial back. He had to step away to do it, and he’s honest about that. You might not need to move to another country. But you can decide who and what gets to change how you feel.
The other thing he never let go of was the music. Through all of it, he stayed connected to what he loved in the first place. Any music lover will get that. The music was there long before the fame, and in the end it was the music that brought him home.
Read it and you’ll learn more than just his music. You’ll learn some things about yourself too.
It’s in the music section of my free guide, 50 Books That Shaped Me. It’s the only one by somebody who worked in a record shop I used.
Maybe it’s time you asked what your vibe is right now, and who’s been setting it for you.
