Xenia Manasseh's Homecoming
Xenia Manasseh’s return to Kenya couldn’t have come at a better time. Fresh off the success of her latest album, Love/Hate Pt. 2, which recently topped the Apple Music R&B and Soul charts, she’s back home to give fans a live experience of the project. In a moment of serendipity, this achievement aligns perfectly with the anniversary of her debut project Fallin' Apart, which hit the same milestone five years ago. In an exclusive conversation with TANGAZA, Xenia reflects on the thrill of creating in her home country versus Los Angeles, navigating the music scene in the diaspora, and the anticipation of performing her new album live in Kenya for the first time. She also shares what her fans can expect after the culmination of the Love/Hate story, hinting at fresh sounds and new artistic directions that lie ahead.
How does it feel to be back in Kenya after your time in LA? What’s been the most emotional part of this homecoming for you?
It feels amazing to be back home. The most emotional part of coming home is always seeing family and seeing friends and just seeing my community again. Sometimes I forget just how much love I have around me when I'm here. So that's always very beautiful.
What did you miss most while away?
My community and food, food, food, food. The weather and the cost of living, even though I know on this side it has gone up and it is more expensive to survive here as well, it's still a bit of a breath of fresh air for me.
How does the creative process differ for you when you’re in Kenya versus when you’re in LA? Are there any particular elements that inspire you more in one place than the other?
It's very interesting. I feel like my creative process is mostly the same. It is very instinct based, it's very how I'm feeling in the moment or how I may not even be aware that I'm feeling. It's instinctual and free. The main difference between creating in LA and creating here has been that while I've been out in LA, I've probably created the most Swahili music that I have in my life. Something about being there, and I keep saying, I don't know if it's because I missed home, but something about being there created the space for me to finally find the balance between my Swahili inspiration and my English inspiration. Being there has just made it possible for me to find the balance between using both languages to still communicate the same message within the R&B genre.
Are there any local artists or collaborators that you are excited to reconnect with now that you’re back?
So many and I've been seeing them as each week has gone by. There's so many people. At some point in 2019, 2020, I had collaborated with so many different Kenyan artists that I had pivoted from wanting to put out my album which is now Love Hate, part one and two, and I actually had wanted to put out an all Kenyan features album. I still want to do it but so far I've seen Watendawili, whose album drops on Friday. I'm so excited because I have a song on there with them. I've seen Ben Soul, Karun, Maya Amolo, Mau from nowhere and Boutross. I can't wait to see Boutross again. My community is so huge, almost everybody that I interact with out here does the same thing as me. I'm happy to see everybody.
With your album Love/Hate pt 2 debuting at number 1 on the Apple Music R&B and Soul charts in Kenya, how do you feel about the recognition? What does this milestone mean to you?
The milestone means a lot, it's a full circle moment. It's like it happened once and now that it has happened again, it has solidified the affirmation that I am on the right path. That's already on top of me going through my everyday life knowing that I'm on the path that I was always supposed to be on, you know. How incredible! How freaking incredible!
Can you walk us through the songwriting process for this album? Were there specific experiences in Kenya that shaped these songs?
Like I said, my creative process is the same. Yes there were experiences in Kenya that shaped some of the songs, not that many though. A lot of the songs have to do with situations from the past before I had come back home, and most of them were written between 2019 and 2020. My process has always been about how I feel in the moment without necessarily asking myself the question. I wasn't always aware that I was speaking about myself but over time I've come to realize that it's me.
You are currently preparing a Love/Hate pt 2 live show. What are you most looking forward to about performing the album for the first time in Kenya?
What am I most looking forward to about performing? It's the performance itself, I said this not too long ago in a different interview but it's just because it clicked to me when I was asked a similar question. I feel like performing is my closest connection to God. It is the culmination of everything. It's the culmination of the feeling that turned into the words, that turned into the melody, that turned into a full song and then I get to share it, not through a phone, not through a computer, I get to share it and do that in person. I get to be me and fully embody everything and release it. It's like the ultimate release. It is the ultimate form of expression for me and it also is a huge indicator of my growth as well, not just as an artist but as a person. I do measure it by how present I'm able to be, how much I'm able to connect to myself when I perform and so I can't wait to do that and to just see my vision executed.
Do you have any rituals or routines you use to ground yourself before hitting the stage?
Yeah I do. I like to be in silence. I don't really like when people speak to me because before I'm about to go on stage, I'm like ‘’Please just calm down, quiet the noise.’’ I try to center myself in my body and breathe but over time performing has become something I don't even think about. I think there was once a hesitance and a lack of acceptance that I had and once I got over that I realized that I'm doing something that's natural to me, that I was born to do. So the only thing that can get in my way is myself, but I do love to have a moment to myself to just center and breathe and pray.
What do you hope your audience takes with you from the show?
I certainly don't expect every single thing to touch everyone but if everybody can leave the show feeling like they saw themselves in anything that I did, in anything that I said on that evening, I think that is why I do music. I think that's the point. I think that the special thing about performing is that it's a person-to-person connection that’s very personal. I’d love for any form of healing to happen, and that comes from something as simple as recognizing yourself in what's being presented, and you realize that you're not alone in it and that you can move forward.
Looking forward, what direction do you see your music taking after Love/Hate pt 2? What can your fans expect?
I have so many joint projects. I have two joint projects with UKWELI, one is an indie rock Swahili offering that I'm very excited about. We of course have MAYBE PT 2 and I have a joint project with Rome Flynn. I think all of this is some of the most beautiful music I've made in my life, you know, but all of them bring out different sides of me. With the project with Rome, I've been able to lean back into kind of having one perspective, as opposed to when I'm writing on my own and I have an almost omnipotent perspective of the situation. Here there's a balance because it feels equally masculine and feminine and then there's a middle ground. I also have a project with Rowlene, my best friend. Funny enough our project is so centered around pain and healing from pain, but she’s one of my favorite people to write with because we just understand each other and know how to help each other communicate. I think it's very very beautiful. All this music ranges from R&B to alternative R&B to Afro R&B to ballads, and rock. It's all so beautiful and diverse. I have so many songs including the Swahili-English fusion stuff that I've finally cracked the code on, and the acoustic stuff. There's so much on the way.
What do you hope your legacy will be as a Kenyan artist exporting Kenyan R&B to the rest of the world?
Wow what do I hope my legacy will be? This is a different question because I've always said that I want to leave a legacy of love, but as a Kenyan artist exporting Kenyan R&B sounds to the rest of the world, I don't know. I really do this because I think it's exactly what I was born to do, so I sometimes find it hard to think about or to answer questions that have to do with how I'll be perceived because I really just do it because it fulfills me and it feels right. But if anything, my goal has always been to bridge the gap in all ways that I can, not just in music but in art and fashion as well. I always talk about where I'm from, I always talk about what's happening at home. I'm always doing my best to carry home with me wherever I go.
Xenia will be performing her sophomore album Love/Hate Pt 2, for the first time on 20th November at The Alchemist
