THERE'S a sort of poetic justice to Craig David's resurgence.

The comeback is now complete after his new sixth album Following My Intuition entered the Official UK Chart at number one, capping an incredible year for the Southampton star.

So that's Glastonbury, a new record deal with Sony, a big love in from pretty much everyone in music and now a number one.

Craig is officially cool again - and it really couldn't have happened to a nicer chap.

I've been lucky enough to meet him on several occasions and he's always been warm, friendly and cheerful - even in the dark days when he suffered one of the biggest falls from grace in modern music.

Craig's last number one, the 2000 debut Born To Do It. shifted an astonishing seven million copies.

Surfing the wave of the emergent UK garage scene, the teenager, who grew up on the city's Holy Rood Estate, went to Bellemoor School and was a regular at The Dell, was responsible for the global hits 7 Days, Fill Me In and Re-Rewind.

But before the decade was out, he was releasing an album of Motown covers, which sold less than 35,000 copies before disappearing into obscurity in a Miami penthouse.

The blame was laid squarely at the door of comedian Leigh Francis, whose rubber-faced caricature of the star shouting Bo Selecta down the camera lens made him a figure of fun.

But Craig kept plugging away, despite the multi millions to fall back on in the bank, with his Ibiza TS5 residency being born out of parties at his home in which he mashed up his hits, now considered club classics, with the biggest new tracks from the club scene.

He has worked incredibly hard for his unlikely second chance and, having caught up with him backstage at Common People in May, he genuinely seems to be loving every moment of it.

You could say he was born to redo it.

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here