Kairo Keyz and the Architecture of 'New Jazz'

South London doesn’t hand out easy routes and because of this, since 2021, Kairo Keyz has been building his own. His latest project New Jazz is the clearest picture yet of where he’s headed.

The tape opens unsettled. Synths sliding off-key, 808s hitting like loose scaffolding, hi-hats darting in patterns that feel just slightly unstable. Kairo doesn’t care to smooth it over. Rather he thrives in its breath sharp, phrases tumbling, always catching the pocket a split second before it collapses. That tension is the core of his sound.

He frames it as UK New Jazz, not branding, just instinct. It sits outside drill, Afrobeats, or dancehall, carrying fragments of American New Jazz but warped by his own jumpy, South London-coded delivery. The balance of weight and space, control and chaos, makes it feel unshakably his.

The numbers prove it connects. “Gang” has already pushed past 90 million streams, one of the most replayed UK rap tracks of the past year. His Spotify following has climbed past 40,000, with top cities stretching from Johannesburg and Cape Town to Chicago, Lagos, and Atlanta. The reach isn’t confined to Croydon; the sound travels, and people follow.

“Okay” is the first marker.

The production wobbles like faulty wiring, bass dragging low while synths twitch above it. Kairo cuts through with clipped delivery, stretching then snapping phrases back into time. “How It Feels” shifts the energy inward, lines about sleeping outside, in cars, and on floors landing like timestamps not decoration, not exaggeration, just lived

fact.

“Gang” closes the project. The same song that carried him from uncertainty into global streams returns as the anchor. Not for nostalgia, but as a reminder: the jump into this sound came from a period where stability was scarce and music was the only constant. The mixtape circling back to it makes the point clear this wave wasn’t an accident.

Production choices tell their own story. 808Melo, Tweeko, Young Chencs, Segway: all architects of UK drill and trap in their own right, yet their beats now fall naturally into Kairo’s lane. Walk into any studio and you’ll find instrumentals already bent toward his cadence. Influence works like that not through labels, but through the way producers shape their hard drives.

His growth has been impressive. His headline show at Oslo in Hackney saw him walked in doubting the turnout, left with a room spilling over. Fans pressed against the walls, air thick, choruses shouted back without hesitation. It was the physical proof behind the streaming numbers energy you can’t fake, only earn.

South Croydon still runs through his writing. The positives are few, the struggles many, and those limits left a mark: urgency in his flow, clipped syllables, a refusal to waste space. Even when the tracks lighten, pressure sits under the surface.

In the US, the reaction has been sharp. Audiences hear clarity in his voice, no smothered slang, no muddied tone. The shift came from a decision to record in a calmer, more conversational register, often while seated. A subtle adjustment, but enough to turn local buzz into a sound that crosses borders.

Perfectionism drives the rest. Freestyles that caught traction online, like 'Mainstream', and 'Pilates' never made the tracklist. Not because momentum was lacking, but because they didn’t serve the project.

Discipline knowing what to leave behind is what separates noise from catalogue.

New Jazz moves with bounce, but not the soft kind. It’s bounce as pressure release, bounce as evidence. Across nine tracks, determination bleeds through the kind that borders on delusion, but maybe that’s the only thing strong enough to stretch South Croydon into a global signal.

The tape ends how it began: in motion. “Gang” runs its course, then cuts off without ceremony. No clean wrap-up, no staged finale. Just silence carrying the echo of bass and the crowd that will, inevitably, demand a pull-up.

Listen here