its an impersonal setting rooftop of a fivestar hotel in the heart of mumbais business district but christone kingfish ingram doesnt seem to mind when you try and tease the personal out of himthe 24yearold is being hailed as the heir to the delta blues crown but blues they say is a dialogue songs of the soul in pain ingram was only 20 when he released his first album in 2019 how did he channel those emotional depths and social insights at such a young age we press oneven though im young ive had my fair share of trauma if you will nothing like my woman leaving me or anything but i had different situations where i could channel my own blues its a part of my heritage culture and history of course but ive lived the blues in the sense of dealing with the pressures from bullying my parents splitting my mom passing before my second record covid stopping live performances all of those were emotions i channelled into my music and my first two records for sure holds forth the singersongwriter and guitarist nicknamed kingfish after a character in an american sitcomingrams time under the spotlight has been short but his rise has been no less than meteoric since buddy guy spotted the young bluesman at a festival and described him as the next explosion of the blues guy went on to mentor ingram and make sure he got into the studio to record his first album kingfish that stayed on the billboard charts for close to two years his next album 662 written during the pandemic and named after the telephone area code of his home in mississippi won him a grammy in 2021 and lifted him out of his hometown in clarksdale to stages around the worldcuriously in clarksdale known as the birthplace of the blues every kid today wants to be a rapper not ingram who wanted to go back to something no one else was doing i think it started with my influence in the church my mom was a singer and all my uncles and aunts on her side of the family either sang played or preached at church also i was a constant with the blues in the city i lived right next to a blues band went to the delta blues museum arts and education program dove into the rich history and been here ever since he smiled his big bulky frame belying his gentle almost reticent demeanour as he saya ive learnt a lot from mr guy not only how he commands the crowd and the show on stage but ive even sat and talked with him about life things to do who to trust and who not to the contours of blues music are being redefined and ingram is very much a vanguard of that change taking on the torch from his elders and trying to fit the genre from the midnineteenth century next to pop hiphop