MNEK has always straddled that sort of broad audience – queer, straight, pop-house, R&B, black, the white British mainstream. Since he debuted in 2012 aged 17, as a solo artist on Rudimental’s “ Spoons ” then was longlisted in 2013 on the BBC Sound of 2014 poll , he’s been steadily cranking out high-octane and sometimes sweet-as-syrup pop as producer, songwriter and lead artist. Yet in 2014, it seemed as though an album would quickly follow his pop-house single “ Wrote a Song About You ,” with its huge dynamic build, climactic chorus and the sort of production that defined that Gorgon City/Disclosure new-house era in British pop. EP Small Talk arrived in March 2015. A Zara Larsson collab pushed him into the top 20 across the US, Europe and the UK in July 2015. Then… well, then he put out several singles as lead artist ("Don't Stop Me Now" in 2016, "Paradise" and “Deeper” with Riton last year) that hinted at an album to come. That full-length release, though, appeared to be placed on ice.

“Because I’ve been doing music from so early, there was a sense that, ‘OK, if I started this quickly then everything should move quickly. Everything should move at the stage with which I got into the industry.” Instead, he did it his way. And now he gets to watch while his fans – and maybe the fans of artists who were introduced to him when he featured on their tracks – take in his progress so far. I ask how he’s had to adjust to being known by the Zara Larsson, Stormzy or Dua Lipa core crowds on top of his own. He laughs again. “I see lots of different reactions to ‘Tongue’ than I did to ‘Blinded By Your Grace Part 2.’ With ‘Blinded by Your Grace,’ I had the mums, the aunties texting, talking about, ‘oh, I love this song, it’s so beautiful. God.’ Then ‘Tongue’ is all the gays being like, ‘YAS, GO OFF. Bop. My wig,’” he shouts. “But it’s fascinating. That’s the cool thing that music can do: make you feel this or that way. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to achieve – I’m a music guy, you know? That’s my occupation. All I can do is to my job.”