LEMAR

After a few fraught months when it seemed that, despite his undeniable talent and obvious popularity, he was going to be the only one of the top students to emerge without a record deal, Lemar is now a bona fide pop star.

It's not been easy for him getting to this point. In the wake of Fame Academy he watched most of his fellow students get snapped up by Mercury Records and head chartwards. But the label showed no interest in him.

"I think they'd taken on a lot with David and Sinead and the rest," he muses. "It's quite a few acts. And I was quite adamant that I wanted to be involved in the whole creative process and that I wanted to be given 100 per cent.

"Right now, here at Sony I'm high priority so if I want something done it's pretty instant. At Mercury it would have been hard because they were focusing on David and Sinead. It was just easier for me to go elsewhere."

Mercury briefly showed some interest in Lemar, two months after Fame Academy had finished, but by that point he was wary about whether the label would be the best place for him. So he shopped around.

Lemar is canny when it comes to the music business. He's spent seven years chasing his dream of becoming a singer, even landing a deal with BMG at one point, and knows the business inside out. It wasn't until he met with Sony's Nick Raphael that he found what he wanted.

"Nick saw exactly what I wanted to do and we were looking down the same line," says Lemar. "I've been there before with BMG where we weren't looking down the same line and you eventually clash. But with Sony it seemed we could work things out."

Last year his world was rocked when his mother Edna died from cancer.

The bond between mother and son had become obvious to viewers of Fame Academy who saw Edna turn up every week to support her son's performance, oxygen bottle in tow. When the end came it was devastating for Lemar.

"You have to try and look at the positives," he says. "I've been trying for a long time to do this so I look at it like she came to the show, she saw me sing with Lionel Richie, she saw her son compared to Marvin Gaye and Luther Vandross and she saw me play Wembley.

"You know it's going to happen to everyone one day, but it's never the right time."

Sony offered Lemar all the time off he wanted, despite him being on the verge of releasing his debut single. But the singer didn't want to mull over his loss.

"If I'd taken any more time off, I might not have come back for a while because you just go into yourself and think about things too much," he says. "It makes it hard to perform a song about dancing and having a good time. But keeping busy is good, it's a blessing in disguise."

Lemar, who started singing in a church choir, certainly has a lot of work to do. His fellow Academy students have had mixed success since they graduated but he isn't worried that the stigma of coming from a TV talent show might dog his career.

"Once it's done it's up to you," he says. "I've left it long, well I feel I have, and hopefully the music will stand on its own credibility. Whatever happens you've got to take it on the chin haven't you? But I feel like these guys are behind me so I'm pretty confident."

Lemar is at Bournemouth International Centre on Sunday. Performance: 6.30pm. Tickets: £18.50. Box office: 0870 111 3000.