Utter Craig David's name in the company of thirtysomethings, and you'll conjure fond - possibly amused - nostalgia. The pop star sold 7.5 million copies of his 2000 debut album, Born to Do It, and songs such as Fill Me In, 7 Days and Re-Rewind defined a generation's adolescence. But as quickly as David became a superstar, he became a laughing stock, courtesy of comedian Leigh Francis. Francis named his surreal, celebrity-skewing sketch show, Bo Selecta, after one of David's lyrics and his rubber-faced, incontinent pastiche of the star became its most famous character.
Now in its third act, David's career has reached a remarkable - and unexpected - pinnacle. Over the past two years he has engineered one of pop's most astonishing comebacks. In 2016, Following My Intuition, his first album in six years, went straight to number one; he sold out an arena tour and, six months ago, he became the unlikely hit of Glastonbury 2017: 100,000 people gathered to watch him deliver an infectious, joyful, bombastic set of peppy R&B and dance music on the Pyramid Stage. Perhaps most surprisingly, he never stopped recording: David's seventh album, The Time is Now, was released this month.
It's a rebound that could well explain the sunny spirituality that has come to define the new, millennial-friendly David. He is engaging - not to mention tactile - company - although the meaning of his words has to be unravelled from the cod-philosophy that cossets them.
To David, everything happens for a reason. Many things are "amazing". "Feeling" motivates him more than figures, he says. He has a rich seam of anecdotes about passionate fans. They've convinced him, he says, that "there's a bigger play to all of this. This is not about how many records you sell any more." I ask his publicist of nine years what he's like on a bad day - she says she's never seen one.
He's now 36, but there's something of the eternal child about him. David has maintained his positivity in spite of bleak misfortune. After Bo Selecta cast him into the wilderness of pop culture parody, his music became increasingly irrelevant. In 2010, still pumped up on earnings from Born to Do It but without a record deal, he bought a plush Floridian bachelor pad and decked it out in white leather. It failed to fill the artistic void, however: "In that break, I questioned a lot of things," he says. "I thought Miami was supposed to be living the dream. Why was I not feeling completed?"
