DOWNTOWN KAYOTO * 2001
( One For The Future? You Choose… ) - Thursday 21st March 2024
Words by Theo Darvill. Photography by Joe Howat. Thanks to Ross Hook.
Introduce yourself and describe your sound…
“I’m Downtown Kayoto and music is just one of the tools in my arsenal that I use to express myself and myexperiences. I’d describe my sound as largely rooting within the Pop and R&B structure with cadences and melodies deviating towards Rap as well as maybe Afro Bounce or Afro Swing and indie. At its core, I’m a sucker for really cool drums and really fire chord progressions.
With the name, it's not as cool as other peoples stories haha - like I saw how Arlo Parks got her name and how Childish Gambino used Wu Tang and Generator shit. I really just said when I first started making music I didn't want people to know that it was me making it so I thought of two names Downtown Kayoto. I just thought of it like it was like divine intervention, I didn't even have to think and i’ve just stuck with it ever since.”
What do you think makes you different to the other young up and coming artists of today?
“I think there's three things. One is my vision. It’s different and I have a very unique take on ideas. Even at the beginning, I loved nature and had been around those things that inspired the visuals for Run From You. That’s the concept that I feel like a lot of artists or contemporaries don’t put themselves into exploring fully. This links into my second point which is my ability of not needing to prove a point and being open to evolving whilst still learning without worrying about the politics or how I’m going to been perceived. Another thing is just my ability to just look at the DK shit as a business that I can switch between the two and say oh you know if I'm gonna be realistic and say if I wanna make bread, I know I have to make more songs like this but if I want to be artistic, I know that I'm gonna slip into something a little different. I know the consequences of the decisions that I make and I feel like I’m very aware of that, which is great.”
What’s your story? How did it all start and what challenges have you faced along the way so far?
“Well, I wasn't supposed to be doing what I am doing now. Like it's just the way that life was unravelled as I found myself in this position, and I'm massively grateful and thankful for how everything's turned out. My parents come from Zimbabwe so I'm that first generation, they are, you know, the standard lawyer, doctor, whatever, so I was gonna be a doctor. I went and did all the tests to do that and all the A levels to do that and I went to Uni to do medical biochemistry in hopes to even change into medicine but I didn't end up doing any of that.
Lockdown happened and that's when I really started to take the DK stuff seriously. And then from there it was just like, keep it consistent, keep connecting with people as well, like, it's cool to be a creative director, to be DJ, to do all these things but I was just so heavily ingrained within me that in order to do something and succeed in life, you should do something that a lot of people have done and something that has a low failure rate, higher success rate sort of thing. So like being a doctor, or a lawyer, you know? So, I just completely dismantled that brick by brick during lockdown. You just have to be so passionate about whatever you do to the point where when you're doing, it doesn't feel like work. I find myself now truly encapsulating that, whether it be at 9:00 AM, 9:00 PM, waking up to make a mood board and hopping on my phone to try and articulate my ideas.”
Moving forwards, what are some of your short-term and long-term career goals for the future?
“Yeah, there’s so many. I think the main short term one is to release this next EP and execute it better than I did the last one. Also, to start dipping into shows - I'm gonna do a little tour this year which will be fire. I also want to support a really fire artist and kind of dip my foot into that whole side of things. I also really wanna step up the visual side of things and prove to people that I’m not only a music artist but I’m also spearheading a lot of the creativity that goes on - I'd also love to move into creatively directing my first solo magazine cover.
Long term I think it’s just about being proactive, like these brands are lazy. I've made a pitch for a brand to throw an event in like Leeds but I started that shit myself and broke it down, presented it to the team and it just never progressed anywhere. To get something like that off of the back of the DK shit would be mad. That's the kind of thing that happens when its me just being unapologetically on it. You just need the vision, and you need the confidence. So I'm always going to do that.”
Talk to me about some of the unsung heroes of your music career to date. Is there anyone that you perhaps wouldn’t be here today without?
“Not to flip the question too much but if I’m being honest, the answer is literally everybody that’s graced my life. I'm eternally grateful for it - they’ve shaped me. Whether it be Joe Howart, doing up the videos, Louis Lincoln who was doing the videos before, Jack Calibos from the states who produces the music, Frankie, who produces the music here, the mix engineers and even right down to the stylist, my boy Troy. This is all a team effort - the team is actually so important, sometimes maybe more important than the vision because if you haven't got the people around you there to champion you and execute things with you, it ain't gonna last.”
“Came Thru” by Downtown Kayoto
“It's literally just this thing of, you know, going to great lengths to show up for somebody who most probably won’t show up for you but more importantly, it’s about you realising that it's not a bad thing and that it actually speaks volumes of your character - for you to move mountains for someone who can’t even move a molehill for you. I cooked the track up with my boy Jack; it was the first song that we made on the very first time we met each other in real life when he came over to London. It’s definitely the song I’m most proud of within my career so far.”
Favourite lyric from the track…
“You can’t give me love but I came through. It’s the chorus, it really encapsulates the whole mood of the song and it feels like one of those lyrics that you can imagine shouting at the top of your lungs with your friends.”
