When I was in 8th grade back at the beginning of 2017, my most anticipated project was easily Playboi Carti’s first mixtape. It wasn’t just the music that was alluring to me – it was also all the cosigns stacked around his image before a single song from the project had even dropped: A$AP Rocky signing him to be a part of the A$AP Mob, his ties to Ian Connor, his close friendships with Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Yachty, an unreleased collaboration with Frank Ocean, modeling for Yee

Cilo is steadily forging his own path as one of the most promising voices in music, building a sound rooted in presence, freedom, and self-trust. With his newest project, dont close your eyes, Cilo steps into a new creative era defined less by control and structure, and more by instinct and honesty. It is a project that reflects not only his growth as an artist but also his growth as a person. Growing up, Cilo was shaped by the sound of the Bay Area. Windows down, local class

8.5 million people live in New York City and nearly 60,500 of those people go to NYU. In 2021, one of them flew 9,400 miles from Kuala Lumpur to get there. Another flew 4,970 miles from Honolulu. Together they traveled more than 14,000 miles to end up in the same library, at the same table, pretending to study. They never really studied. “We would end up just listening to music or scrolling through Spotify together,” Natalya recalls, laughing a little at the memory. The textb