If My World, Bryn’s debut album, sounds like the work of an assured, confident, old-school soul man trapped in the body of a new kid on the pop block itching to make his mark, that shouldn't come as a surprise. Ask him about his own songs, and he'll talk to you about addiction, undervaluing yourself, the Iraq war and writing lyrics on his mobile phone. If you want soul-steeped authenticity in 21st century togs, Bryn Christopher's your man.

Bryn was brought up in Great Barr, Birmingham, one of four children born to a black father and a white mother. His parents separated before Bryn's seventh birthday, and he was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother. Painfully skinny, with different interests from the other kids, Bryn was teased mercilessly and began to dread going to school, until he joined a youth theatre company at the age of 12. Here he discovered a sense of confidence and the kind of pop music - Alicia Keys, Michael Jackson - that he could relate to.

He joined a soul band at his secondary school and wrote his first songs as part of his music GCSE. But perhaps the pivotal moment in his aural education came when Bryn and some school friends attended a play and heard Try A Little Tenderness sung on the backing track by someone who clearly wasn’t The Commitments... "I was shouting out to my friends during the play," he recalls. "I was like, This guy is amazing! Who is it?' I'd never heard anyone sing like that. And someone told me it was Otis Redding."