Following several visits to the city over the years, Osama (Sam) Shalabi moved to Cairo in 2011, arriving at an apartment one block from Tahrir Square, in the midst of Egypt's 'Arab Spring'. Shalabi describes The Big Mango, his new and phenomenal work for his Land Of Kush big-band, as "a love letter to Cairo" framed by "the beautiful, surreal madness of the city… as joyous, horrific, historical events were unfolding".

The music was also inspired by time spent in Dakar – a break from the unrelenting intensity of Cairo – where in Senegal's music scene Sam experienced parallels to another of his important aesthetic and political touchstones, Brazilian Tropicalia. The sense of a "positivity, complexity and radicalism in art that was also playful and joyous and wasn't necessarily part of a 'revolution' but seemed to be a form of innate radicalism" – in tandem with the relative openness of Dakar's Islamic society, where the role and presence of women in public and private life, and the relaxed physicality and sensuality of the culture in general – offered a powerful counterpoint and feeling of promise for Egypt's own future. The Big Mango is one of the many nicknames for Cairo, but also evokes the sweetness, succour and sensuality of southern hemispheric music more generally, in its aforementioned relation to broader socio-political movements.