At the tender age of 25, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram has already been heralded as the future of blues music.

That could lead to high expectations for the Mississippi native, who already has one Grammy win (best contemporary blues album for 2021’s “662”) and two other nominations. That goes along with all three of his releases earning best contemporary blues album recognition at the Blues Music Awards.

All the fanfare doesn’t seem to bother him, though.

“I try not to pay attention to it because once you start believing your own hype, that’s when things start to go down,” Ingram said with a laugh in a recent call from Los Angeles.

The blues singer/guitarist credited his manager, band and friends in the music industry for keeping him grounded and shrugged off the lofty praise.

“Yeah, man, all of that is just people just being excited,” he said with a laugh.

The summer tour promoting his latest release, “Live In London,” will visit Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale on Friday, with Mathias Lattin opening.

Ingram was in L.A. last week working on his next album, tentatively scheduled for early next year, describing it as the continuation of his musical evolution.

“I think I’ve found part of my sound, if that makes sense,” he said. “Everybody knows me for the blues and the rock and the sweet and subtle shredding-style guitar playing, but I feel like this next record, people are going to see a new style from me: R&B meets the blues shredding it. So, yeah, I feel like this new record would kind of solidify the genre that I play.”

Ingram’s blues education began with an arts and education program at the Delta Blues Museum in his hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi. There, he learned about the different scenes in Chicago, Detroit and the West Coast and studied the likes of Sun House, Robert Johnson, Albert and B.B. King, Otis Rush, Magic Sam and more.

“I’ve always had an interest in music since I was a toddler, but like many kids, our attention span, it’s not all that,” he said. “So I did go to other things after music, but around age 8 that’s when I really felt like that’s what I want to do. So I’ve been in this since that age.”

When Ingram was 14, he and the Delta Blues Museum band played at the White House for then-first lady Michelle Obama. Although he said he was popular back at school “for about a week” after his classmates heard about the performance, not all of his peers got his appreciation for the blues.

“Kids didn’t understand it. Where we come from, it’s painted in black and white. Blues is one form of music. What we like is ours so it was kind of like taboo for them,” he said with a laugh, “but I just had to explain to them that with me being a musician and a music lover, I understand that this is part of our culture, and this is part of all the music that we love today.”

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According to Ingram, the knowledge he soaked up inevitably comes out in his playing.

“I try to keep my music steeped in the tradition somehow,” he said, “no matter what I’m playing — blues, soul or funk — I kind of want you to hear the blues in it even if it’s not all blues.”

Having already collaborated with blues legends like Buddy Guy, Eric Gales and Keb’ Mo’, Ingram said he would also like to work with Thundercat, Anderson .Paak, H.E.R. and Snoop Dogg.

”I’ve got some friends in the blues world I still haven’t collaborated with that I want to do something with,” he said. “I’m always on the hunt for new people to make music with.”

Besides his music career, Ingram has dipped his toes into the acting world with an appearance on Netflix’s “Luke Cage” series. In the future, he wouldn’t mind going beyond playing a blues musician.

“I had a lot of fun doing that,” he said, “and it’s quite different because us blues-based players, sometimes every blue moon you see somebody in the blues world gets an opportunity like that, but it’s not a recurring thing for us.”

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