Sonique must be feeling oh, so good right now. She's sitting in the chill-out room at China White's nightclub in London, where masses of African-print cushions are strewn around a giant communal bed, and she's savouring the sweet, aromatic smell of overdue success. At the tender age of thirtysomething, this singer, songwriter and DJ from north London has hit the big time with her single, It Feels So Good, and the Britneys, Christinas and Samanthas of this world have had to stand aside briefly while this athletic, multi-talented older woman took her turn on Britain's Number One podium this May.
It Feels So Good has been a huge runaway success, not just in the UK, but in the US as well, where the song went into the Billboard charts at Number 28, a staggering achievement for an unknown British artist. How it happened was unusual: a club DJ in Tampa, Florida started playing the song on import, and word spread through clubland like a forest fire.
Before she knew it, Sonique (whose real name is Sonia Clarke) was a bona fide pop star in the US, enjoying the kind of recognition there The Corrs would kill for.
"I've been on a three-month tour, in every state in America," she tells me. "I haven't actually gotten over that yet. I'm just back a week, so I'm still on American time. It was really intense, because it's a completely different world. I went there as a pop star but not realising it until I got there and couldn't walk the street. I must have signed a million autographs. I couldn't go anywhere without having to sign something. "I did all the big radio shows, some of them had about 20,000 people, and I met people like Bon Jovi, Hanson, En Vogue and Enrique Iglesias, so many people that you just see on TV, and suddenly I was on the stage with them. They were coming up to me and shaking my hand and congratulating me, and I thought, this is really weird.
"It was amazing as well, but I wasn't expecting it, so by the time I came back I realised that, yeah, you've really hit it big-time in America."
While in the US, Sonique went to the Miami Music Conference, a massive industry shindig with the emphasis firmly on dance, where she was unofficially inducted into the pantheon of superstar DJs.
Then she flew to Ibiza to perform at an MTV special, playing at a vast quarry in front of 15,000 mad-for-it clubbers.
The night before we met, it was back to her old haunt, The Cross nightclub in King's Cross, for a bash thrown by her label, Serious. But as she settles into her carved wooden seat at China White's, Sonique admits she has felt rather swept away by it all.
"It actually feels like sudden success, because all I've been doing, I've been doing it privately, which is quite fun, 'cos you can just get on with it. But when you become successful, you just get so much attention that it does feel like instant success."
However, Sonique refuses to define her good fortune in terms of record sales or chart placings. "Success is when you've been at it for ages; basically, it's like having a job, and you get better at it. And then you become successful to yourself, and maybe then the rest of the world will acknowledge that."
This native of Crouch End, London has been plugging away at her job for more than 10 years, signing her first record deal while still a teenager, and landing a plum position as the singer and co-writer with S-Express in 1990.
While working with S-Express leader Mark Moore, Sonique taught herself DJ skills, spending three years practising before she dared to stand in front of a dancefloor. Having once trained as an athlete, she seems to have developed a fierce determination to be better than average at everything she does.
"I believe whatever I choose to do in my life, I'd like to be good at it. Just for my own satisfaction. It's just a challenge, and challenge just fills your life with things to do. So, you kind of better yourself while doing it, it's good for your mind and it's good for your soul. I try to give 110 per cent - sometimes 100 per cent isn't enough.
"After I did S-Express, I just wanted to do something that was in me. I can't even remember the day I decided I wanted to be a DJ, I just felt like I wanted to do it. I remember seeing Mark messing around on the decks and thinking how hard it looked. And I tried and I just couldn't do it. So I just kept trying - for years I was at it - and eventually it just pulled itself together."
She got pretty good at this DJ lark - even before her chart success with It Feels So Good, Sonique was one of the world's most in-demand female DJs. It seemed natural to incorporate singing into her DJ sets - although it took fellow DJ, Judge Jules, to put the idea into her head - and Sonique's reputation as a singer has grown alongside her deck skills.
She did guest vocals on Josh Wink's massive anthem, Higher State of Conscious- ness, has had her own club hit with I Put a Spell On You, and earlier this year she released her own mix album, Serious Sounds of Sonique.
Her debut "artist" album, Hear My Cry, was released in June, but so far hasn't matched the phenomenal performance of the single.
Whether Sonique remains a one-hit wonder will be seen with the release of her new single, Sky, in September. It's already getting airplay in the US, so the signs are good that she'll have another Stateside hit. Is there any other dream she'd like to realise?
`Learn another language. I wish I could speak Spanish properly. I can just about get by, but I really want to learn a couple of languages, because communicating with the world is so important, you know. And these little barriers we have, like language barriers, I just can't stand them."
At the end of last year, one of Sonique's dearest dreams was cruelly shattered. After an eight-month pregnancy, she lost her baby, and soon after that her relationship broke down too. So her current success is tinged with sadness, but, with her usual steely determination, Sonique is putting a positive face on the future.
"I'm not in a relationship right now, and I'm quite glad in a way, because I couldn't hold it down, to be honest. It wouldn't happen. I couldn't give the kind of love that I would like to have in a relationship.
"Being this busy, on the phone all the time, and they couldn't come with me on tour, and then you've got arguments and stuff . . . ugh, no. My biological clock is always ringing, but I'm just kind of focusing right now. When it happens, I just wanna be ready, but it's so far away, I don't wanna worry about it.
"I've got good friends. Not many, but six or seven really good friends. I keep in contact with them all the time, and they usually come to my gigs, 'cos I never really have time to go out with them. My mum was out with me last night, and also my brother and little sister. We're all really close."
As she ended her DJ set in The Cross the previous night, it felt like not just a homecoming, but also a farewell of sorts.
With the big-time beckoning, Sonique is getting less and less time to do the small gigs, and if her pop-star career continues its upward trajectory, chances are that she'll be too busy to play the hometown clubs where she learned her DJ chops.
Is this goodbye to the old life, then, and hello to Hollywood?
"Some things I've had to leave behind, just because I haven't got any more time. The schedule I've got is just so mad that the DJ-ing has taken a back seat. But it's still there. I wouldn't even have done last night if I wasn't still into doing it. I'd have cancelled that and not even bothered playing. But I love it that much.
"Actually, last night made me realise just how much I would never leave it. There's just no way I'm going to stop DJ-ing."
Sonique's new single, Sky, is released on September 4th on Universal Music. The album, Hear My Cry, is on sale now.
Sonique DJs in the Cream tent on Monday at the Rose of Tralee festival
