Grammy-nominated songwriter Xenia Manasseh just released a new joint EP, Maybe II, with Kenyan producer Ukweli. This six-track project is an amalgamation of sounds and soulful melodies spanning across cultures and time, from beautiful Swahili melodies to 80s R&B rhythms.
Listening to Xenia’s rich voice and thoughtful lyrics, you are taken on a pensive musical journey, where all the emotions that come with healing, self-discovery, and love are felt throughout the project.
In her opening song, Options, as I’d call it, the avoidant lover’s attempt at embracing the necessary behavioral change needed to receive love. You start saying “hoping you’ll still have a little faith in us” once you feel like you are “ready for a change,” but you started the relationship talking about “the situation is only temporary.” In a way, I feel like this is an indirect indictment of situationships, where the prolonged nature of avoiding commitment complicates the nature of today’s romantic relationships.
But much deeper than a topic of situationships, Xenia dives into the trepidations of an avoidant lover trying to permit themselves to love again, all while still moving with an air of vigilance. They are battling with the options in front of them. Do you allow heartbreak and the fear of things going wrong to hold you back from finding love again? Or do you take that leap of faith and permit yourself to enjoy all that comes with committed love?
In BACK2ME, Xenia dives into the duality of the phrase “back to me” in relation to a potential lover coming back to you, but also the journey of rediscovering yourself—coming back to the parts of you that feel lost or incomplete. This duality that Xenia speaks about is not only an important lesson in romantic relationships, but even in how we relate to our friends, family, and the world around us. So many times, we are hyper-focused on the other person whom we long to have in our lives, but forget that there are elements of ourselves that we have lost and are actually in need of to love others.
“In this scenario, I realized that we both seem to be afraid of how we feel and as clearly as I could see their fear, mine was equally on display.. so even if they weren’t fearless and were ready to choose me they’d still find a Xenia that had fears she needed to overcome and it still wouldn’t be the right time.. so ‘I must come back to me’ so that when it is, we have a chance to have something that can last.” -Xenia Manasseh
Now this project is not just about the heartbreaks we overcome or the avoidant lover’s conundrums; it is also celebratory in nature, as exemplified by tracks like EAST2HWOOD. In this song, you transition into a funk flow, where the bass guitar sets the groove feel of the track. If you are looking to reminisce about the 80s, this 2025 track will transport you back in time.
Bittersweet is a groove that truly gets you out of the funk of comfort. Xenia sings with a real conviction of pushing herself to break out of the mold of familiarity while calling herself, and in extension, the listeners, to a higher calling of potential. Her inspiring flow on this track sounds like a resolute speech that will bring you out of bed on a rainy day and get back to that passion project you’ve been meaning to start.
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In the song, she says, “potential is not enough, potential don’t function on a schedule…we gotta break a habit!” Sometimes we believe that things will happen for us without choosing to take the risks necessary to fulfill our potential. Staying in that comfortable “paradise” of a life built on what we think we can control and predict is to rob ourselves of truly living life to the fullest.
Now my favorite track on this EP is Rudia, where we see Xenia flex her Swahili melodies on an R&B song. There is an inexplicable, captivating beauty in Xenia’s voice when she taps into her Swahili melodies. This track articulates the sensual feelings that are conjured by the pure and liberating sexual tensions of lovers. Xenia sings, “Niambie unachotaka nitasikia…na ukisema unapenda, nitarudia,” translating to “tell me what you want and I will listen…if you say you love it, then I will do it again.” As much as romance is about receiving, it is just as equally about listening to your lover’s desires to provide them with pleasure that leaves them with a yearning to come back for seconds.
Maybe II is a sequel to their 2022 EP, Maybe. Xenia and Ukweli’s continued partnership is a testament to the deep trust they hold for one another, where the creative vision can be perfectly crystallized within the output of the performance.
“Ukweli and I found out that our parents have known each other since we were kids, but we feel like we officially met in 2019. We never really had any formal plan to put out projects together; we just really enjoyed making music with each other. With Maybe II, we worked with the amazing Andrew Grossman, who engineered and mixed our project and honestly contributed such dope sonic elements to it. Everything about it felt so correct and, dare I say, fated. When you listen to the music, I feel like you also get a sense of people that aren’t really trying to create one kind of music, we just enjoy making music that feels good, no matter the genre (although we still call it an R&B project).” - Xenia Manasseh.
Photographs By Matthew Matete
