Craig Lucas on Sobriety, Queerness and Reinvention: “I’m More Myself Than Ever”

South African singer-songwriter Craig Lucas continues to push boundaries as one of the country’s most fearless queer voices in music. His powerful, versatile vocals first catapulted him into the public eye when he won The Voice South Africa in 2017, marking the start of a bold and evolving artistic journey.

Craig, who grew up in Elsies River in Cape Town, soon followed his win with his debut album, Restless, which earned a SAMA nomination for Best Pop Album and paved the way for a series of striking singles in the years that followed.

In 2018, he shared an emotional and deeply personal open letter in which he came out to his family, friends and fans. Since then, he has embraced his role as a visible queer artist, using his platform to advocate for LGBTQ+ representation while openly discussing his experiences with depression and addiction.

Craig’s talents extend well beyond the studio. He holds a degree in Economics and Politics from UCT and a master’s degree in Development Studies from UWC. He also founded the Warren and Arlene Lucas Foundation—named after his brother and sister-in-law, who were murdered in 2022 – which supports children and young people in underserved communities.

His new EP, Tip of My Tongue, marks a triumphant return to music. Across six tracks of queer pop brilliance, Craig blends irresistible hooks with unfiltered honesty, exploring desire, grief, joy and vulnerability. The songs feel raw, intimate, often sexy, and at times playfully subversive.

In an unfiltered interview with MambaOnline, Craig opened up about making music after dealing with loss and addiction, and how he continues to challenge both his own and society’s expectations of masculinity and queerness.

You’ve described your EP Tip of My Tongue as “everything you’ve been biting back for years.” What made you want to finally say it all? Why now?

When I won The Voice, I got signed into a deal, and I just felt a lot of pressure to be a certain way. To be really agreeable, you know, like in order to be successful. Even though I had come out, I still needed to be as uncontroversial as possible. It was also just really difficult not owning my music in the literal sense. I got out of that deal last year, and I was an independent artist, which means that when it comes down to actually making the music, I have the final say. And when that happened, I almost felt like a kid in a candy store. I got into the studio, and I was like, “Oh my god, I can do anything I want.” And so, I did anything I wanted! These are the songs that just resonated with me the most, because I had the most fun making them.

You can feel that in the work. It’s very free, and it’s very authentic. When you were signed to the record label, did you feel that the pressure was being imposed on you?

No, it was definitely self-imposed. I didn’t want to let anyone down. I had this idea of what success was supposed to look like if I wanted to become one of those artists that the label loved and that the label was backing. But there came a point where I realised, like, I’m really not enjoying making music anymore, and so I just didn’t see the point. So, I stopped for about two years. I couldn’t make any music. I had writer’s block. I was really depressed about it. At that point, I’d sort of come to that realisation, you know, that maybe pop stardom isn’t for me… and I’d be happier if I just made music I like. And if that blows up and does really well, then it’s a double win.

Would you say this EP is the most unapologetically queer body of work that you’ve put out there?

It is. But, I mean, it’s nothing major, you know, he/him pronouns in songs, which is such a simple thing, but it is the first time that I’m doing that. I didn’t do it in any music prior to this EP. I listen to [my previous music] sometimes and every time it gets to the bridge where I’m singing about a “girl” or “she,” I cringe so much. So knowing I’m going to listen to this EP and I’m going to hear “he/him,” “boy,” it makes me really happy. I’m singing to a boy. I’m singing about boys. But on the grander scale of things, I don’t think it’s very revolutionary. But it means a lot to me that I get to do that.

The track Cool on the Internet is such a sharp take on online perfection. What’s your relationship with social media like?

It’s been really good in allowing me to connect with people. That’s been great. I don’t really care too much what people’s opinions are of me, especially on social media. What I do struggle with is this need now to have to make content all the time. It has become a really big part of what being a musician is. And I just really struggle with it. I don’t have time to spend four hours to make a reel. I’d rather spend my time learning to make better music than spend my time learning to be a better content creator.

You’ve said the EP is a love letter to imperfection. What does imperfection mean to you now? How do you embrace it?

I think by just letting go of a lot of the expectations of what I thought my career was supposed to be at this point. In my mind, I was supposed to have reached the top, and I didn’t. And I was really hard on myself about that. I just had all these expectations, some I put on myself, some others put on me. The second you let go, the closer you kind of get to who and what you really are, because a lot of the things that you’re holding onto aren’t the truth of who you are, it’s all societal expectations and pressures and maybe things you grew up with — traumas. With school and with my foundation and all the things I’m doing, if music doesn’t pick up, it’s not the entirety of who I am anymore. 

High, Drunk & Horny references your struggles with addiction, but there’s also a cheekiness to the song.

You know, it wasn’t all bad. It was a lot of fun. I sometimes get flak for saying that, but it’s the truth. Partying was a lot of fun. Drinking was a lot of fun, doing drugs was a lot of fun. Until it wasn’t. It also came with all the bad stuff. It came with depression, it came with loneliness, it came with fighting and arguing. It came with losing people that I love. But it was also fun, and I think it’s important for me to acknowledge that, because if I’m going to pretend that it was all bad, that’s not going to be my truth, and I feel like then it will be easier for me to slip back. So, it’s just being honest and being like, “Look, this was fun, but the consequences were so much worse.” That’s honest to me, and I feel like that’s going to make it easier for me to stay on the path of sobriety.

I think that’s a really healthy way to look at it.

As opposed to looking back with shame! There’s so much shame around addiction, we don’t want to talk about it, you know? And I just think getting rid of that stigma, getting rid of that shame, being able to own up and say, okay, it was fun, but it was also bad. It’s a better point to start the conversation… There’s no reason that we still in 2025 need to be ashamed about struggles with addiction.

Tell us about becoming and staying sober.

A big part of why I was able to become sober was understanding why I needed to do those things to have those good times. And I say this to my friends; the reason for my drinking was to hurt myself. I always was like, I want to drink, and I want to drink so much to the point where I know it’s bad for me. I want to drink and then drive. I want to do so much drugs that I black out. I was drinking and doing drugs as a way of hurting myself. And therapy made me realise that, and that’s when I realised, okay, I’ve got a problem.

What role did sobriety play, if any, in your creativity in making the EP? Was it harder to be creative when you were sober?

I was really scared at first that I wouldn’t be able to write. I think there’s this false belief that as an artist, you need to suffer to make good art, right? The first year of my being sober was also the year that I lost my brother and my sister-in-law, so music took a bit of a backseat. But the second I got the email saying that I was released from my record label contract and I had gone independent, it’s like something unlocked in my brain and the music just came pouring out of me. I was able to write and write and write and write, and honestly, in the last year and a half now, I’ve probably written more music than I had in the six or seven years prior. I’ve written the best music that I’ve written. I’ve had the most fun writing music. I do recognise how being sober-minded has changed just me and how I interact with people, how I interact with myself, my ability to reflect, to be self-aware. I’m just a lot happier now, being on [antidepressant] medication, being sober. So yeah, I think writing from a place of healing and happiness is, for me at least, a lot better. The music’s better.

There’s a lot of research that says that queer people are disproportionately impacted by addiction and substance use. Why do you think that is?

I think I know more heterosexual people struggling with addiction than I do queer people. But speaking for myself, my queerness and the fact that I had hidden that for so long was probably the biggest contributor to me drinking and doing drugs. It started way before The Voice, you know, and nobody knew that I was gay. When I came out publicly, I must have been about 26. I came out to my close friends and family just a year prior. And I would say from 21 to 24, that’s when the problem started, because I was so ashamed of who I was, and I was so unhappy, and the only thing that brought relief was alcohol and drugs.

And I think you carry that with you. Even when you do come out and you’re able to be yourself, and you’re going to the clubs and you’ve got a queer family and friends around you and the queer support system, I think a lot of us still don’t deal with that shame and those feelings. We don’t deal with the fact that maybe our family don’t accept us, and a lot of us sometimes pretend that we don’t care. We find a new family, and you know, that is important, but I think just having to hide ourselves, and also the fact that many of us get bullied — those are wounds that I don’t think we take the time to heal. And so drinking and drugs become a salve, a plaster we put on that follows us into our adulthood.

I think a lot of us can probably relate to that…

That’s what it was for me. It was all those wounds that being queer had given me, that I tried to numb with alcohol. I was bullied in high school. I was called a moffie. My mum didn’t accept that I was queer at first — it was really difficult. There were family members I was very close with who to this day just don’t speak to me. Very religious people, people that I loved for a very long time. And, you know, you move on and you find people that love and accept you, and that’s amazing, but those things still hurt. Maybe we don’t realise it and we don’t address it, and so we just get caught up again.

Drinking feels nice. Doing drugs feels nice in the moment, but it’s not a long-term solution. And I think it’s easy then to just get caught up — being drunk and being high, you’re able to be this version of yourself that I think all of us wish we could be, or wish we could have been our whole lives. Confident, unapologetic, feeling sexy, feeling good. That’s something we were robbed of growing up because we were queer, and alcohol and drugs give us that for just a little bit. That is  possible without alcohol and drugs, but it takes a bit of work. It takes finding community, it takes having these kinds of conversations.

For anyone out there struggling with substance use, struggling with possible addiction — what advice would you give them?

I am very privileged that I got to go to therapy. It’s a big part of me realising that I had a problem, and therapy is really fucking expensive. I remember when I got diagnosed — so I’ve got bipolar II, and I’ve also been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I just remember getting that diagnosis and going on medication and all that guilt that I felt for all the things I was doing, all the ways I was behaving because of my mental illness. Why am I depressed? Why am I so lazy? Why am I not wanting to socialise? Why am I so moody? Why am I so aggressive sometimes? All that guilt lifted because I understood I had an illness. I was able to get medicated, but it was so expensive. And that’s a problem. There are so many queer kids and, just in general, so many poor kids that will never know this. They’ll spend their entire lives thinking that there’s something wrong with them. And the easiest and cheapest therapy is alcohol, and it is drug use.

So, in terms of advice, the cheapest and easiest thing to do would just be to talk to someone. I know that’s pretty clichéd, but to talk to anyone, even if it’s not a therapist. It’s as simple as making a phone call. I know those free services exist. Because when you’re struggling with addiction, when you’re struggling with depression, you feel like that is who you are. It feels like the totality of who you are. But when you speak about it, when you write about it, it becomes separate from you. You’re able to look at it, you’re able to hear yourself, you’re able to, you know, say it to someone, use them as a sounding board, and realise: “I am not addiction, I am not depression. These are things that I struggle with, but they are separate from me.” And so, therefore, it’s less powerful.

We’ve touched on this a little bit, but do you think your queerness influences your songwriting in a way that would be different if you weren’t queer?

Yeah, I think so. I think being queer and being more open to and in touch with my feminine side helps my songwriting. I mean, I’m still going through the process of unlearning all this patriarchal thinking. I still struggle with showing my feminine side, because there’s this whole “no fem, masc for masc” thing within the queer community. It was a very hard thing for me to admit, because I did drag on the Manila Von Teez show [Die Tollie & Manila Show], and I was so afraid of getting into drag and presenting as feminine. A big part of my identity was as a masculine gay man, because that’s the top of the hierarchy, right? And that really opened my eyes, and I was very ashamed to admit that.

I remember when I came out, people in my community told me it’s okay if you’re gay as long as you’re not a moffie. It’s okay if you’re gay, as long as you’re not a drag queen, as long as you’re not wearing a dress. And I internalised all of that. So you put yourself above effeminate gay men. You put yourself above trans people, because that’s what society is saying. So it’s also taken me a couple of years to realise that’s what I was doing, and then to start to shed and unlearn that. So I think as I get in touch with and learn to love and accept the more feminine part of myself, I think it has impacted my writing. It just allows me to be more honest. Again, there are fewer filters in my brain when it comes to writing songs, and those filters sometimes aren’t conscious — they’re subconscious. And the songs just become more and more honest.

Looking back at winning The Voice back in the day, if you think of that Craig listening to this new EP, what do you think that version of Craig would feel about it?

Being on medication, going to therapy, being sober, I’ve now become more of myself than I’ve ever been. The version of myself medicated I thought would be a dumbed down, numbed down version of myself, but it really has opened me and allowed me to say things and do things without crippling anxiety in the back of my mind, without now having the reliance on alcohol and drugs in order to be social and to talk and be confident.

I think he’d be very proud. I think he would think I was cool. Deep down inside, I was always this person. I was just too afraid to be that. This is what I wanted to do. This is who I wanted to be, and I just didn’t allow myself to.

• You can stream the Tip of My Tongue EP on all major streaming platforms here.
• If you’d like to talk to someone about depression, anxiety, life challenges or substance use, contact SADAG’s free Cipla Mental Health Helpline (24 hrs) on 0800 456 789, the WhatsApp line on 076 882 2775, or their Substance Abuse Helpline on 0800 12 13 14.