Dua Saleh is probably best known for memorably playing the role of Cal Bowman in Sex Education. But the 29-year-old Sudanese American has also been a poet, an activist and – perhaps a natural culmination of these two – has a longstanding career making genre-spanning music that centres queer desire.
Since 2017, the artist’s songs have folded in rap, indie, rock, jazz and R&B with poignant musings on love, self and grief. Saleh has previously said their comfort in making such unapologetic self-explorations is rooted in finding their voice from a young age. Their family were refugees from the second Sudanese civil war, moving from place to place before eventually settling in the US, in Minneapolis. There, a teenage Saleh led a high school walkout in protest against the disproportionate school-to-prison link for disadvantaged young people, acutely aware of injustice and the need for collective action and care.
