FEATURE:
Second Spin
Craig David - Born to Do It
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I want to include this album…
of 2000, as I remember there was this great movement of 2-Step Garage that was coming though at that time. The Garage movement in general was exciting and something I had not heard before. Craig David’s Born to Do It, to me, was one of the forerunners of that movement. It was released on 14th August, 2000 in the U.K. and later in 2001 in the U.S. Before his debut album, many people would have heard David performing vocals with Artful Dodger. I think that his debut album is a confident and appealing set of songs that marked him as a talent to watch. Craig David is forty on 1st May, and it seems strange that he released Born to Do It over twenty years ago! I really like the album, yet there have been some mixed reviews. I think the U.K. audiences bonded with the album more than the U.S. ones. That seems to be the divide in terms of critical reaction if not sales. With classics like 7 Days, Fill Me In and Rendezvous, Born to Do It is a terrific album. With David writing most of the songs together with Mark Hill (who is one half of Artful Dodger), one gets to hear an authentic voice and lyrical approach. I wonder why 2-Tone Garage sort of dissipated or whether it evolved into Grime or another genre. It was an exciting time for British music and, as such, I think Craig David should be given some respect.
I will bring in a positive review for Born to Do It but, first, this 2007 review from Rolling Stone is not entirely glowing:
“The mantle of "next big thing" has been placed heavily on the shoulders of Craig David, the twenty-year-old British soul singer whose debut album, Born to Do It, is already a massive hit around the world. But David doesn't just have the burden of making a name for himself; he's also supposed to be the one who finally introduces to U.S. shores the knotted, electro-rouged beats of two-step - a.k.a. U.K. garage, the club music of choice for Brits. The problem is, to American ears already shaped by the sonic wizardry of people like Teddy Riley and Timbaland (two big influences on two-step producers), the sound isn't quite so revolutionary. It's actually kind of familiar. What ultimately distinguishes Born to Do It from the stuff currently clogging the radio is the way it strikes a balance between traditional pop and R&B;, using modern production flash as the bridge. David's music is crammed to overflowing with acoustic guitar and prominently placed strings, layered just so over the insistent thump of beats and bass, even in the ballads. The result has more pop savvy than most contemporary American urban fare but is more authentically urban than the blue-eyed soul of MTV-friendly boy bands.
Tracks like "7 Days," "Fill Me In" (the first U.S. single) and "Can't Be Messing 'Round" have steel-plated hooks that burrow into your head and won't let go, while David ad-libs such hip-hop cliches as "Money ain't a thing" and "[I'm] getting' jiggy just for fun." Still, the slick Born to Do It is dragged down by an overabundance of ballads ranging from the kind of sappy fare that lovesick teenagers play for one another late at night over the phone ("Rendezvous," "Key to My Heart") to self-consciously risque fare like "Booty Man."
David has a creamy voice that's given texture by a palpable libidinous yearning; it's the sound of a horny boy becoming a smooth player. His vocals are layered and treated with effects on almost all the tracks, and he has the ability to flutter his voice atop stuttering beats or to race ahead of those same beats while still keeping time. Though he's undoubtedly talented, it's only on the Artful Dodger-produced U.K. club classic "Rewind" that David really makes a lasting impression. There - with his singing chopped up and edited into riffs and hooks - David is sexy, commanding and vibrant in a way that the rest of the album only sometimes achieves”.
I don’t think Born to Do It gets played that much on the radio or, when it does, it is singles like 7 Days. Dig deeper and other tracks strike you. I like Can't Be Messing 'Round, Time to Party and You Know What. Of course, Walking Away was another big hit. The album has some real gems and hidden treasures!
As Wikipedia outlines, Born to Do It has a huge legacy and was a massively important album that turned Craig David into a star:
“At the 2001 Brit Awards, the music video for the album's second single, "7 Days" was nominated for the Best Music Video award, but lost out to the music video for "Rock DJ" by Robbie Williams. Following the album's release, David was nominated for three MOBO Awards, including best newcomer and best album for Born to Do It. David was also nominated for four Brit Awards in 2001, including Best British Album. Born to Do It became the fastest-selling debut album ever by a British male solo act, a record the album still holds. The album has since been listed as the 45th fastest-selling album ever.
With the album's lead single going to number one in the UK, David (at 18 years and 334 days old), became the youngest British male to have a UK number-one single since Jimmy Osmond, and was the youngest solo artist at the time to have his debut single go to number one in the UK. This record has since been surpassed by Gareth Gates, who was 17 years and 255 days old when he debuted at number one with "Unchained Melody" in March 2002. The album would serve as a musical inspiration to producer Rodney Jerkins during his work on Brandy's third studio album, Full Moon, following a gig in London, England, months before where he was exposed to the UK garage collaborations between David and Artful Dodger”.
Before wrapping things up, I want to bring in a positive review from AllMusic. This is what they wrote when they listened to Born to Do It:
“In his 2000 debut album, Craig David merges smooth-soul crooning with a cascade of glistening keyboards, circling guitars, and sophisticated rhythms. Displaying a healthy marriage of current R&B vocal stylings and U.K. club/dance fused beats, David's music skillfully evades feeling robotic and cold, while still sounding pristine and immaculate. As an artist who is in his late teens, he conjures up a personal and revealing work that delves into both his mature sound and youthful attitude. Co-writing and co-producing with Mark Hill of the British garage act the Artful Dodger, David wraps his scorching-cool vocals around a mellow attack of keyboards and drums, while distinctly focusing on romance, relationships, and clubbing. Guitars simmer on "7 Days," a day by day account of an adventurous first week with a woman he magically encounters while in a subway. In "Can't Be Messing 'Round," the performer's razor sharp vocals heat-seek while a keyboard hammers before being covered by a high-sounding whirlpool of strings. With the dance anthem "Time to Party," drums sting and a whispering guitar is faintly heard while he optimistically sings "Friday, payday/Ready to do the things we love." The lyrics do sometimes sound underdeveloped due to David's age, and the music can occasionally lack distinctiveness, yet those two factors do not hinder the celebratory power of Born to Do It. The album features an effortless presentation of limber and carefully articulated vocal talents by the singer that seamlessly glide through the polished collage of songs”.
Actually, before finishing up, I want to borrow from a Stereogum article that was published last year to mark twenty years of Born to Do It. It makes for interesting reading. I have selected some segments that stood out to me:
“David’s breakout was intertwined with that of 2-step, a club-born lovechild of house and R&B, and a kind of fraternal twin with UK garage, which took over as the new dance trend in late ’90s Britain after the jungle and drum and bass waves had crested. David was making regional rounds as a DJ by the age of 15, and connected with a pair of local producers, Mark Hill and Pete Deveraux, who were going by the name Artful Dodger (readers may remember that name from the Streets’ “Let’s Push Things Forward”: “I make bangers not anthems/ Leave that to the Artful Dodger”). Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in 2001, David succinctly demystified 2-step’s inner workings. “It’s a hybrid of R&B and house-garage where you take the bass drum off the second and fourth beats of the bar,” he explained. “That gives a unique skipping feel.”
Born To Do It asserted David’s influences as being more in tune with R&B and hip-hop and the depth of personality and storytelling that one can bring to those forms. Abandoning 2-step altogether, though, would have been turning his back on the crowd that established him. A conscious decision was made to write a transitional song that would satisfy the old clubland guard but also ease into David’s broader vision. “Fill Me In” mixed controlled-burst verses, honeyed production and that fleet-footed beat, and it exceeded expectations by becoming David’s first #1 record.
David’s delivery on “Fill Me In” is impeccable, and the music’s hooks are subtle yet insistent, but the meanest feat that it pulls off is lyrical. Recounting a young lover’s house call, no time is wasted getting down to business: The suitor is summoned by phone and arrives to find his lady dressed in a long negligee already pouring glasses of red wine. Next thing you know, they’re fooling around a bit, switching on the answering machine, and hitting the hot tub. But instead of the scene reaching an obvious conclusion, the young man’s mind turns to the young woman’s parents, who, while nosy and a little controlling, are actually decent folks.
“7 Days” was David’s second consecutive #1 in the UK. He was two for two, and Born To Do It was selling by the truck load. Despite that, David looked at the American market with a grounded mindset. “Going over to America,” he explained in a 2002 episode of the British television program The South Bank Show documenting his rise to fame, “I felt, I’m gonna put down the bags of all my success in the UK and Europe, and I’m gonna approach this like I’m a newcomer who wants to show that it’s about songs, and it’s not about trying to please certain people and trying to make everyone enjoy every aspect of my music.”
David, too, liked to point out his differences as much as his similarities with American artists. “I’m influenced vocally by R&B music,” he told Billboard. “As for rap and hip-hop, it comes from the UK’s garage scene, while my production leans into different genres. Being brought up in the UK and coming from a mixed-race family, it’s hard to put my style into a category. It’s left-field music that incorporates all my flavors.” While Born To Do It went platinum here, David’s popularity wasn’t enough to bring wider attention to all of 2-step. For one, it was already losing steam in its home country, where dance genres had to quickly evolve or die out, and the popularity of “Re-Rewind” had turned out to be as much a peak as it was a breakthrough.
If you have not heard Born to Do It or listened to a bit when it came out, go and listen again and enjoy. I think that it should be played more on radio and, whilst I have seen some mixed reviews, a lot of people were positive when it came out in 2000. All these years later and it still sounds…
SO accomplished and compelling.