O2 Arena, LondonIn his meteoric rise from high-school to stadium-filler, the El Paso crooner lost his early radicalism – but he has the time and the talent to rediscover it
Khalid grins broadly at the roiling sea of phones arrayed below him. “Day two at the O2!” exclaims the 21-year-old pop crooner with a bewildered shake of the head.
Clad in a cosy argyle jumper, chinos and Converse, he has just finished delivering a pair of songs, 8Teen and Twenty One, that mark the distance the singer has travelled in 24 months. At 18, Khalid was still living with his parents. “Yours are more understanding,” he notes ruefully (his mother is an army sergeant) on what is still one of his most affecting songs. By Twenty One, from Khalid’s latest album Free Spirit, he’s singing about pain, anxiety and the understanding that drinking legally in the US doesn’t solve anything.