“He can come and spend two months in Britain playing for exclusively Nigerian crowds,” says Ian Anderson, editor of fRoots magazine.And for every Baaba Maal or Youssou N’Dour who has found international success, there’s another African superstar who remains unknown outside their home country, such as the Ethiopian singer Aster Aweke. “Some Asian artists, such as the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, would do two completely different gigs in London: art-house shows for a mixed audience at somewhere like the Barbican, and then a bigger venue for a mainly Pakistani audience.”Others, such as the Nigerian fuji star Barrister need never reach new audiences. Yet their names are unfamiliar to most people outside their own expat communities in London.”Some of these acts draw an entirely different crowd when they leave their home country,” says Andy Wood, of the promoter Como No, which specialises in bringing Latin music to the UK. Most of them are household names in their own countries; some are superstars. Yet they can (and do) sell out shows in London whenever they come here And there are plenty more where they came from. Over at Wembley Conference Centre the following night, there was a capacity crowd made up mainly of Indians for Bollywood’s biggest musical superstar, Asha Bhosle.
What they all have in common is that they are almost completely off the radar of most music fans – even those with a taste for “world music”.

Despite being virtually unknown here, the headline act, Fat Freddy’s Drop, had attracted a sellout crowd – most of them from their native land. On the same night, on the other side of London, the South Bank became a little corner of Kurdistan for a concert by Aynur, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. If you had gone down to Brixton Academy a week ago today, you might have had to pinch yourself to check you had not been transported to New Zealand. As well as fantasising about being the focus of a South Bank Show, he notes that he is yet to fill a stadium.

“I’ve done it as a support act but never as the main event,” he sighs “It’s more of a bizarre fetish than a dream. But if I did that, I think I could die happy.”The single ‘Diva Lady’ is out now ‘Victory for the Comic Muse’ is out on Monday on Parlophone. Along with referencing The Divine Comedy’s first EP, the largely ignored Fanfare For the Comic Muse, it articulates his sense of triumph at still being able to make music.”Most people don’t get this far,” Hannon says. “I’ve known so many people come and go in the time that I’ve been doing it. They’re probably all richer than I am, and doing proper jobs, but to still be doing it after so long is a gift.”Hannon has yet to fulfil his dreams completely, however.

Now he has reclaimed his old persona and is, he claims, “beginning to revel in this strange history. At least I’m not constantly trying to point people to the new stuff, the new me.”That’s what the title of the new album is about, he says. I think Regeneration was a fine work but it wasn’t as personally satisfying to make as the other ones. I came out of it feeling, ‘Was that really my album?’ I didn’t have so much fun.”It’s likely that Hannon will always be fixed in people’s minds as the well-dressed bon viveur with an eye for the ladies, but that’s no longer a problem. The reviews were good but sales were poor.”With the benefit of hindsight, I realise that I thought that was what I ought to do I didn’t want people to merely know me for the cravat Now I don’t care what they know me for Hell, it’s great that they know me at all.