Fraser T Smith is the biggest producer in Britain. A bold claim, sure, but one thats entirely justified when you consider the 48-year-olds CV, which, featuring cowrites for everyone from Mabel and Tom Grennan to Sam Smith and Adele, reads like a Brits red carpet roll call.

Hes master of the pop banger Smith has contributed to 18 No1 albums but most recently hes become best-known for his role in the British rap resurgence, having helped MCs such as Ghetts and Kano achieve recognition outside the underground, before coproducing two of the most seminal albums from the past five years: Stormzys Gang Signs & Prayer (2017) and Daves Psychodrama (2019).

Smith actually joined Dave onstage at the Brit Awards in February to deliver the most talked-about performance of the night with Black, the lead single from Psychodrama, which earned the pair the Ivor Novello for Best Contemporary Song earlier this month. It was their second time winning this highly prestigious award, having already picked up the prize for Daves seven-minute political anthem Question Time in 2017 and one in a long line of accolades for Smith, including Grammys (most notably for Adeles "Set Fire To The Rain), Brits (for both the aforementioned rap albums) and the Mercury Prize, again, with Dave for Psychodrama.

Now, for the first time, Smith is making the move from behind-the-scenes into the spotlight with his own debut solo album, where the likes of Dave and Stormzy will appear not as the lead artist, but as featured acts. Titled 12 Questions, the album, which is due in October, sees Smith pose 12 deeply profound, urgent and universal questions to a lineup of collaborators old and new, with contributions from Kano, Ghetts, Idris Elba and Bastille, as well as artists Es Devlin and Katrin Fridriks, poets Simon Armitage, Arlo Parks and Alysia Nicole Harris and former Black Panther Albert Woodfox. The record couldnt be more resonant for right now, tackling exactly the kind of existential issues that have come to define a 2020 worldview, whether thats retrospection or the desire to reset.

Today, hes releasing the video for the first single from the album, Do We Really Care? Pt1, which features Tom Grennan and rapper Tia Carys. Although the album was 80 per cent finished before lockdown, this particular song had yet to be recorded, meaning Smith had to get creative in order to get it over the line: We drove a hard disk recorder with a mic down to Toms house and left it outside. He took it in, recorded it, gave us a call and left it outside again for us to pick it up. I got his vocal off the little memory card, which is what you hear on that single, he says. Smith knew he wanted this to be the lead track: the chorus, a sample from The Lovin' Spoonfuls 1966 hit Summer In the City, felt weirdly prescient for the pandemic, particularly the line There doesnt seem to be a shadow in the city. Also, he says, Tia Carys' verses, which delve into her growing up in London, really resonated for this time.

The video, premiering exclusively above, drills down on these themes even further, offering a trippy, animated look at the lyrics in action, inspired by the artwork from 1970s progressive rock covers and created in collaboration with creative agency 1983, illustrator Ori Toor and Pentagram Design. Knowing how conceptual the record is and how potentially challenging some of the concepts are, I wanted to make sure we had balance, says Smith. I wanted visuals and music that people could just enjoy. As much as the collaborators answering the 12 questions are incredibly deep and diverse, I dont want the album to feel high-brow, so I wanted to juxtapose that with a video that was pretty. It also features Do We Really Care? Pt2 at the end, a spoken word piece from Poet Laureate Simon Armitage.

Smith came up with all the existential questions himself, saying that they flowed out of him during a time when he was feeling anxious about his next step musically, but also the state of the world more generally. Theyre big and focused (Dave, for example, responded to Why Are We So Divided, When Were So Connected? while Stormzy tackles How Do We Find Our Truth?) but also intertwined: The more we got into it the more I realised there was a lot of cross-pollination between the questions, so What Matters Most could relate to How Much Is Enough? he explains. Its been the most amazing 12 months of learning... I went into this looking for answers and through the strength and diversity of all the collaborators I came out with some really interesting points of view. Being able to share that in this album is the greatest gift Ive been given and also could possibly give.

So of all 21 tracks, does Smith have a favourite? Id never heard of Albert Woodfox before doing this record, but while I was trying to decide who I wanted to pose each of my 12 questions to, I read an article about him. Long story short, I flew out to New Orleans to ask him, Whats the cost of freedom? His story is well documented, but to sit in a room with a guy who was held in solitary confinement for the longest of any prisoner in America 44 years, 23 hours a day in a six by four feet cell, to ask him that question, it was a mind-blowing experience, Smith explains. He asked Kano, who hes been working with since 2004, to appear on Freedom, the companion track: For him to have to record the track on his phone, then for me to receive that and hear how he reacted to Alberts story was a seminal moment.

Interestingly, Smith has chosen not to release 12 Questions under his own name, opting instead to go by Future Utopia. Im very proud of the collabs Ive done over the years, but I did feel that my name is so associated with the great people Ive worked with, that it could feel very much like a producer record, he says. Instead, this project feels to me very much like a collaboration in the Massive Attack and Gorillaz style and Id like to feel that this project could take on many different guises in the future.

Given the mind-expanding aims of the record and the way it so skilfully, comprehensively captures the zeitgeist, would Smith say he feels hopeful or concerned for the future? I feel positive because I just feel we have to be, he says. There has to be good that can come out of the terrible events of lockdown in terms of the way that we view frontline workers, carers and the NHS. I think in the wake of the George Floyd tragedy there is more awareness of Black Lives Matter and hopefully so much more care and education These terrible events have allowed us all to take stock of the way that were living and, hopefully, we can move forward in a more diverse, caring and thoughtful way.

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Fraser T Smith on going from Britain's most in-demand producer to solo star - British GQ