Following her debut, A Side of Me, Nikita Kering’ comes into her own through musings on relationships, trauma and finding solace on The Other Side. “I think A Side of Me was a taste of innocence, and each song represented certain emotions I felt at different times in my life,” she tells Apple Music. “This EP is emotions put together to tell the story of a lady who has finally found herself and figured out her purpose. It’s an expression of where I am at the moment that blends beautifully into something harmonious.” That cohesiveness is apparent in how deft inflections of hip-hop, Afrobeats, and dancehall inform the Kenyan singer’s distinctive take on R&B. While The Other Side is anchored by these melodic turns, the EP owes its emotional charge to Kering’s poignant songwriting—something the artist credits to her personal growth. “Age and experience have [made] me more aware of situations as they happen, in order to register the emotions. I give myself time to make sure I’m putting down everything that’s going on,” she says. “It’s almost like journalling but in the form of a song.” These songs could be lifted directly off the 20-year-old’s diary, as she reveals below—track by track. “On Yah (Intro)” “It’s funny—this was a real experience. In Kenya, we call it ‘kujianika’, which means to embarrass yourself, put out your dirty laundry or show people your true self and the bad things you actually did. I was having something with somebody, and I wasn’t feeling it anymore, and it wasn’t working for me. Instead of telling them that because I didn’t want to break their heart, I ended up breaking their heart in a different way. They had their flaws and instead of embracing those flaws, I used them against the person. I’m saying, ‘I put the blame on you, but in my heart, I know it’s all my fault.’ I’m not proud of myself; you can see that I have remorse, and I ended up hurting myself as well.” “Last Name” “So, after what happened in that situation, I’m a bit messed up, so I’m just out there looking for a distraction and a quick fix. It’s like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m just trying to find someone to get me out the door.’ It’s a representation of the mood I was in—kinda lost, and I guess the only thing I can find is someone else.” “Save Me” “‘Save Me’ is me realising that it might be the experiences I had in my past that could be making me behave the way I do—impulsive, messy and not very empathetic. I’m gonna keep breaking my heart if I don’t realise that I need help and I have a problem. The experiences I had when I was younger do contribute to the decisions I’m making. Instead of being there for me, this is someone who violated something within my body, life and my soul. I completely gave my trust to this person, and it broke, so the only way I could learn to engage with other people is by making myself believe that I’m in love and acting as if I’m trusting. Now my head is like, ‘Snap out of it. You don’t believe that. It’s not true.’ So, I’m talking to God, saying, ‘I need you to save me.’” “Love Outside” “I can tell you for sure ‘Love Outside’ was just to throw everyone off this emotional theme, just so you can forget everything I just told you. I’ve just revealed everything about myself, so it’s just a playful track. I love playing mental games with people. There’s this person threatening to leave me, and I’m like, ‘OK, you’re not gonna find this connection we have ’cause we’ve been completely vulnerable and made this a safe space.’” “Unrelatable” “‘Unrelatable’ is a track I wouldn’t say has a deep meaning. It’s just me flossing—being like, ‘Look at me doing well in my space.’ Everyone thinks shortcuts got me here, but there was a process that led me to where I am today. I worked hard and had patience. I honestly have a very bad attitude on this song: I’m telling y’all I wish I could relate to your struggles, but I’m still standing here—and you’re still standing [beneath] me.” “Falling Down” “With this song, I wanted to make people feel like it’s a dance song or a winning song with a tropical vibe, but eventually, when they read the lyrics, I want them to think, ‘Oh, that’s what she was talking about—it was that dark!’. The song is about escaping or running off to start life from scratch. No one is dealing with the core issue but asking me to forgive and asking why I keep talking about the past: ‘Cousin said he wants to see through my dress.’ I’m telling everyone that didn’t understand what I went through that I’m leaving them. The whole situation overwhelms me and has become a part of me, and I have no idea how to run away from it, other than to leave the place that makes me unhappy.” “Get Through” “We get into ‘Get Through’ where we talk about the opportunity all this has presented for healing. Here, I’m basically using light and darkness as representations of the good and bad things that happen in our lives. I literally talk about the actual night because bad things usually go on then: ‘Turns out the night is an enemy of all/I’m doing right, but I can’t avoid the fall.’ That just means I believe I’m trying my best to be a good person, but this dark stuff takes me to a place and makes me become a person I believe I’m not. People that have done terrible things in this world often have certain experiences or traumas that made them that way. This is a story of trying to ignore that voice and trying to push forward.”