All roads lead to Cairo
30th September 2024
By Miriam Kimvangu
Cairo takes listeners on a journey through the fight between love and identity on his debut project Double Love. The title track was released as the first single of the project and was the track that really cemented the EP.
“Double Love came about and I knew at that moment we had a project,” Cairo said.
He started off with dreams of becoming an artist and left college with that in mind but very quickly, the realities of the music industry hit him fast. He found himself as a songwriter which was at least more sustainable than being a new artist. His dream was not forgotten, simply put on the backburner until the opportunity to work on his own music came around.
Cairo explains, “At first, I was just writing with other artists and never had any desire to put my own stuff out and then when the opportunity came, I thought let’s just see how it goes. After having a bunch of sessions and not really clicking well with the production, I had a session with Levi [Yarde] and we wrote Daffodils I thought, ‘Okay I know where to go’”.
The EP is not only in story order, but also in order of the sessions starting from 2022 and each story makes up the story of being in a relation with someone being on the DL (down-low), hence the wordplay in title ‘Double Love’.
Cairo describes his experience growing up as a queer man in London as being ‘bittersweet’. On one hand, there is a large community where many including himself have met their found family and are given a safe space to be who they truly are. On the other hand, dating when one tends to be more feminine presenting can be “hard to digest” for people. “You have to pick your poison. Either you’re in the closet and unhappy or you’re out and proud but dealing with the scrutiny.”
Through sharing his experiences through his music, Cairo hopes to provide not only his perspective on navigating queer love but also to be the very necessary representation within an industry that, even under the surface, is dominated by the straight male perspective.
On the artistic side, any time he has tried to intentionally sit down to write out something specific, it hasn’t worked out. While it is true that his work is a reflection of his real life experiences, Cairo shared that the entire process of this EP was really just about magic being made in the right circumstances. In his own words, “When it just flows, I feel like a good song will come from it”.
Cairo’s future dreams include being signed to TDE and collabing with artists like TianaMajor9, FLO, Victoria Monet, Kaytranada and Doechii, to name a few. If he continues to go at the rate he’s going, with a combination of his smooth tracks and stunning visuals to accompany them, it’s not a dream that is unreachable.
Tracklist:
Daffodils
Double Love
Godspeed
Lost the Meaning