Mr Sheldon Young is laughing down the phone. He is describing how his musical upbringing started by playing drums for the choir at his local church in Compton, that infamous city in southern LA. “I was writing gospel songs in elementary school ’cos I had to go to church all the time,” he says. “That was my life growing up. And then they changed to songs about insecurity, songs about girls and shit… I mean, I still write songs about that.”

Though he continues to write about self-doubt in some shape or form, you wouldn’t know it from listening to his music. Young’s work oozes a distinctive nonchalant confidence. Perhaps this is in part because he has been songwriting most of his life. The main difference now is that he is known as Channel Tres, the singular rapper-singer-producer who makes heady beats topped off with a distinctive low drawl, or else a deliciously high singing voice, all delivering lines such as, “I am the controller/ Your body is a game”.

It’s freeing, breezy music that sits somewhere at the confluence of house and G-funk, with club humidity and robust flourishes of sleek jazz, and live shows replete with slick choreography (“I love body movement,” he says). In short, his music is a joyful score for the chaos and hedonistic energy that permeates nightlife.

Since his emergence in 2017, Channel Tres’ star has risen and risen. He is now known not only for his own bouncy catalogue of swaggering, sexy songs including “Topdown”, “Controller” and “Sexy Black Timberlake”, but also for his collaborative work. He has featured on songs with everyone from Disclosure to Robyn, and done official remixes for the likes of Grimes and Tyler, the Creator (the latter of whom offers a sweltering feature on Channel Tres’ own track, “Fuego”).

Alongside his gospel-influenced songwriting at school, he was performing at talent shows and listening to Messrs Pharrell Williams, Kanye West and André 3000: artists who were making eclectic, boundary-pushing music. “I was a weird kid, so their music kind of helped me coming out of my shell,” he says. Still, he felt a career in music might be impossible. And so he decided he needed to hone his craft.

He moved to Oklahoma for college, studying classical music while learning production and how to make beats. After five years, he returned to LA and began songwriting for his friends, beat-making for Kehlani (among others) and working as a tour DJ for artists such as Duckwrth. He soon decided he wanted to put his energy and vision to work his own artistry. “It was getting boring doing things for other people,” he says, “I just had this urge to take my journey into my own hands.”

He signed to the indie label godmode as an artist, and then, in the studio one day, he started talking in an unusually deep register on the mic. “The room went crazy,” he says. From there, Channel Tres came to life as a project through which he wants “to get people moving [...] get the party going [...] But also to tell my story and make people feel emotions, while also making songs that are playable.”

We are talking while Young is in the UK, a brief stop on a lengthy tour that has seen him journeying through Europe this summer, ahead of a long set of North America dates that will see him through to the end of this year. Though his music might make it seem as though he is partying all the time, he says he is very mindful of resting and self-care while out on the road.

“I stay in the gym constantly,” he says. “I try to go to bed at a decent time, I watch a lot of movies, eat good food, drink water, take my clothes to the dry cleaners, add a new piece here and there. I like to party, but I like to DJ – and if you’re DJ’ing, you’re not really in the middle of everything that’s going on. And that’s kind of the only way to get me to a party sometimes now. I’m in my thirties, I can’t do it like I used to. I gotta sleep, hangovers are different now.

“I used to feel a way about getting older, but honestly, bro, I think it’s about setting a good example. You wanna make these ages better, you can’t be doing the same shit [you did in your twenties], you gotta change it up and slow down. It’s about longevity for me.”

Legacy runs central to Channel Tres’ work, and it’s something he’s been thinking about as he gets older and his work becomes better known. “Once you get your feet wet in the game a little bit, you realise that it’s really about the music, about how people feel, community,” he says. “It’s less about just trying to get fucked up or something like that.”

In a summer where both Beyoncé and Drake have released dance albums and much of the mainstream music press has only just begun to acknowledge and recognise the Black and queer roots of the sound, I ask if it’s important to him to uphold the history and pay homage. He is initially – understandably – blasé about it.

“My way of paying homage is trying to make something better,” he says, “Everybody wants to get caught up in history and shit, and that’s cool, but… I don’t know, man – DJ’ing is just paying homage in general. The conversations around it… I don’t know, the world is always caught up in fads and shit, [the media] will give us credit for a second and then go back to business as usual. At the end of the day, I’m in this for ever.”

Later, though, when I ask what he has learnt from working with so many different artists over the years, he is more reflective. “I think being a Black artist, sometimes as you’re growing up, you’re not taught to value yourself,” he says, “So I think maybe it’s good that this ‘resurgence of house music’ shit is reminding people it’s a Black genre, it’s a queer genre, because I think sometimes when you’re not taught where you come from or don’t know what it’s about, you don’t know how to value it enough. As much as a lot of people are coming to realisations, I’m coming to realisations and learning the value of myself – so I guess… it’s good?”

Young’s got a track with house music legend Honey Dijon on the horizon (“I really look up to her, so it’s really dope to have a record coming out with her,” he says). He’s also starting to think about putting out his debut album – though he’s not in a rush.

“It’s about the right timing and making sure I have the proper skill for a full-length project,” he says, “Can you keep somebody’s attention for that long? I have been putting out EPs, because that’s where I was at – but now I’m getting better, I’m more free with the music and I’m having fun. I feel fine with myself, and I’m a perfectionist, but my self-worth isn’t tied to my art anymore.”

Partly, this is down to getting a little older. “You start looking inward instead of looking at everyone else and realising, ‘OK, I actually am pretty cool’,” he says. But also the realisation that the bad and good feelings attached to his work don’t last.

“Tying your self-worth to that shit isn’t worth it,” he says. “You look at the checks and balances of life and realise this shit don’t really add up, so I just think, ‘Let me love myself regardless of what fucking happens’. At the end of the day, what’s consistent is that I love myself.”

Channel Tres is shaking off the insecurity, and – with his enticingly polished grooves – he’s imploring us to do the same.