Cara Rondeaux: “I had gone through a lot I thought ‘how can I help myself’ and music was it”

Cara Rondeaux is a Bromley-based, talented rap artist. She started writing lyrics and rapping when she was 13 years old and now, at the age of 16, she is focused on starting her journey as an artist. Coming from a difficult background, she is determined to make her way to the top and follow her passion for music and rapping. Cara is inspired by R&B and hip-hop and uses music as an outlet for her feelings and experiences.

Cara has attended sessions funded by ArtsTrain and facilitated in partnership with You’re Only Young Once (YOYO) and another Bromley-based organisation that works with young people from challenging backgrounds.

Cara sat down with ArtsTrain to tell us about how her experiences have impacted her music and lyrics.

AT: How did you get into music originally?

CR: So I used to love football, and my goal was to play for Arsenal Girls, and for England and internationally – that was my dream. But a lot of things came with football and my mum was always working and couldn’t take me and my dad wasn’t a father figure in my life like that. So I had to move onto something different and because I had gone through a lot I thought ‘how can I help myself’ and music was it! I’m so in my element, in the zone when I listen to music! It’s like my therapy and a coping mechanism – when I need to get things off my chest or I need to stop thinking I just write lyrics about how I feel or how others feel.

AT: What do you write about in your lyrics?

CR: My struggles - kind of seeing my mum go through certain things and my dad not being in my life like he should have been and just what’s in my head – the demons in my head. I’ve got to get it out somewhere, and the best way to do that is music. I think music does become a lot of people’s therapy and it’s such a beautiful thing.

AT: Do you have any inspirations for your music?

CR: I love the artist Lil Durk, but one of my main inspirations would be my friend who passed not too long ago. We made music together because we both felt the same. He’s my inspiration now because obviously he’s not here doing it with me anymore, but he is, if that makes sense, because everything I do is not just for me, it’s for both of us. When I make progress, he makes progress. He was my best friend and he was stabbed and didn’t make it. From that point, I wanted to take it more seriously. I’ve got to give it to him, he inspired me and pushed me even when I’d say “maybe music’s not the way”.

AT: Can you tell me a bit about one of your tracks you’ve been working on and the process behind it?

CR: I’ll be sitting in my bed, scrolling across Youtube and I’ll come across a beat and think ‘Hold on, rewind that’. Or I’ll go through random beats and look at the title of the beat and I’ll picture that word, and that word will become a whole story. For example, struggle was one of the titles, and I made a song about that. The lyric I came up with was:

What do you know about a struggle, when your family live in lavish?

Had to grind for what’s mine, just trying to get this cabbage

In other words, a lot of people don’t know what I’ve been through to get to where I am now, and I’m still not happy with where I am right now. So I still need to do everything and beyond. But I’ll be sitting there, and I’ll find a word and there’ll be no distractions and there’ll be me and the beat and then I’ll just go, and write and write.

When I’m in a bad place, or feel like I’m not worth it, I’ll write and it’s reassurance that I am worth it and I am here for a reason. I know that a lot of other teenagers my age feel like that. Most of my music is a message that you’re not alone – there’s a lot of people feeling the way you’re feeling. If I’m feeling like this, and you’re feeling like this, we can both make it, we can both do something with ourselves. No matter how you’re feeling, there’s always someone also feeling like you or someone worse or better off than you.

That’s what people like – they just want to feel understood. My whole life, I just wanted to feel understood. So when I’m listening to songs and I’m like ‘this song understands me, this song gets me!’ If I can make music where people smile, feel like they can relate, and like they have a purpose then I’m cool with that. As long as I’m helping other people as well as myself then I’m willing to do that. I don’t want anyone to ever feel how I feel because how I can feel at times is not the best… So if I can help people with just a three minute song then I will do that because that’s what happened to me.

AT: What dreams/aspirations do you have for your music?

CR: Yeah, I wanna make America! I want people to say ‘Oh, you know, Cara’s doing this…’ and I wanna walk past people who doubted me. Not even to boast, but just to say I made it, and you told me I wasn’t going to but ‘look now’. I’m gonna make it, it’s not even I wanna make it, it’s going to happen. I just need to turn my dreams into reality.

AT: Are you working on anything at the moment that you want to share?

CR: I haven’t released anything yet because when I do release stuff, that music video needs to be perfect and so does the song. Everything needs to be 10/10 perfect – if I don’t listen to my song and want to add it to my playlist, then why would anyone else? I want to like my music and listen to it, because personally I would say I had a good taste in music so I want to think “This is my song! Oh my god, look what I made!”

I am working on a lot of things, I am always writing lyrics and there are so many songs where I’m thinking this will be my first release, I need to take it to studio. But soon, all in time, I’ll be releasing music.