"I'm just working on a cheesy little doo-wop song which uses satellite navigation as a metaphor for trying to find someone," says Ben Hudson. "Well, actually it's a simile - I'm such a pedant, I like to get these things right."

More commonly referred to by his title, this young gentleman is an English literature graduate from Oxford. He is also the mastermind behind one of the most pleasing developments in hip-hop over the past 12 months, his band Mr Hudson And The Library having infiltrated the genre with reggae beats, cocktail jazz, boy-band harmonies and some classic English songwriting.

And while he may confess his friends think him "self-sufficiently arrogant", at least he isn't pretending to be working class like Lily Allen.

"I'll go to a grime night or a hip-hop night, or I'll go see Dido at Brixton Academy," Hudson says. "Equally I'll go and have tea with a friend from Oxford in a poncy hotel. I don't care for ghettoisation. I just get bored very easily and I wouldn't like to feel I was missing out on anything."

Now known for his dapper headgear, Hudson bought his first hat, a slate-grey trilby, in 2001. "Now everybody wears hats 'cos of bloody Doherty," he laughs, "but back then nobody else was doing it. Back then wearing a hat was the new hair."

Hudson's music career, more importantly, began when he started tuning into London pirate station Itch FM. Here he encountered records by the likes of rapper Sway and began to think about "taking the best bits of hip-hop and R'n'B, that approach to production, but with content that made you think I'm listening to Bowie or Sting or The Smiths'."

He recruited a band, including steel pan player Joy Joseph and Torville Jones, a classically trained pianist who had been on his way to a Stravinsky concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and earlier this year they released their consistently catchy debut record A Tale Of Two Cities - the title referencing Hudson's move from Birmingham to London.

"We were talking on the tour bus and I said, I think we're the best band in Britain'," he tells me. "The band were like, Don't say that to journalists!' But why not? We give it everything we've got live.

"Last night in Cardiff I jumped in to the crowd and this girl got up on one of the speakers and started practically pole dancing, without a pole. Then there was a stage invasion and we brought a basketball on stage and started playing. It's something I learnt in theatre about that fourth wall between you and the audience, and I just love smashing that down."

  • For review, see The Argus on Tuesday or visit www.theargus.co.uk/festival
  • 10pm, all-day wristband £19.50, www.escapegreat.com