So, I got a cat…
As an editor who makes personal revelations for a living, I’ve come into my own on body positivity, self-esteem and career issues. But until now, no one outside my close circle of colleagues, friends or family had an inkling about how obsessed, it turns out, I am with cats–and my cat in particular.
I can’t believe how much I love him. I knew I would, of course, but I thought that it would be in the kind of simple, numinous way you love a morning cup of tea or taking your mask off at the end of the day.
His name is Garfield, by the way. He is a stray who was born in my car park and somehow survived the Dubai summer, before I swept him up and took him under my wing. The simple profundity of loving and being loved back so quickly, so limitlessly, is hard to understate – particularly this year, when the whole world is in search of a feeling and a sensation akin to this kind of pure joy.
Not alone in my affection for the creatures, our cover star has engineered her entire public persona around the charm of le chat. Doja Cat–aka hip-hop’s most fierce upcoming rapper– opens up about winning her first VMA, finding fame, and the lack of women in the music industry. She was the soundtrack to Cosmo ME’s summer (and most of our TikTok videos), and has swept up at just about every award show this year, clad in meow-adorned accessories.
But this issue is not just a celebration of the beloved feline brood. It’s a celebration of music, which has been the glue that held a lot of us together during the most trying times of 2020. In this issue we meet the artists who exemplify what popular music means today, from the next generation of female Arab rappers, to Now United, the global 17-member band who has just signed their first-ever Arab member.
According to the Chinese Zodiac calendar, 2020 is the year of the rat (never has astrology been more profound, tbh), but here at Cosmo ME, we’re reclaiming the last 12 months and celebrating the year of the cat.