{"id":6199,"date":"2026-06-10T16:45:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interspacemusic.com\/blog\/nikita-kering-returns-with-the-lick-back-ep-after-exiting-universal-music-africa-deal\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T16:45:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:45:54","slug":"nikita-kering-returns-with-the-lick-back-ep-after-exiting-universal-music-africa-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interspacemusic.com\/blog\/nikita-kering-returns-with-the-lick-back-ep-after-exiting-universal-music-africa-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikita Kering\u2019 Returns With \u2018The Lick Back\u2019 EP After Exiting Universal Music Africa Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/interspacemusic.com\/blog\/kenyas-women-in-music-safety-as-hidden-labor\/\">Kenyan R&amp;B vocalist<\/a> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nikita_Kering\">Nikita Kering\u2019<\/a><\/strong> has released <strong>\u2018The Lick Back,\u2019<\/strong> her first independent project since <a href=\"https:\/\/interspacemusic.com\/blog\/south-african-producer-vanco-on-leaving-corporate-life-for-dance-music\/\">parting ways with <strong>Universal Music Africa<\/strong><\/a>. The five-track EP, written in three weeks, arrives after a year she describes as marked by a costly label exit, grief, and a deliberate reset of her creative process.<\/p>\n<h2>A Return Marred by Silence<\/h2>\n<p>Days before a June showcase meant to reintroduce her music, Kering\u2019 lost her voice. A severe cold left her vocal cords inflamed, and she was placed on vocal rest. With cancellation no longer possible, she lip-synced the performance, a compromise she found deeply uncomfortable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomebody paid their ticket to come and listen to a live show, they didn\u2019t pay to come and listen to the track,\u201d she said in an interview. \u201cI hate the dishonesty behind that.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Reclaiming Control, Not Seeking Retaliation<\/h2>\n<p>The EP\u2019s title draws from the phrase \u201cget your lick back,\u201d which Kering\u2019 interprets as personal victory rather than attack. \u201cFor me, getting revenge can never mean going on attack,\u201d she said. \u201cIt actually just means winning for myself\u2026 just doing really well for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That mindset follows a period of professional upheaval. After gaining recognition through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afrima.org\/\">AFRIMA<\/a> (All Africa Music Awards) wins and <a href=\"https:\/\/interspacemusic.com\/blog\/apple-music-connect-returns-this-time-as-infrastructure-not-social\/\"><strong>Apple Music\u2019s Africa Rising<\/strong><\/a> program, she signed with <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Universal_Music_Group\">Universal Music Africa<\/a> in 2022. But the relationship soured, and extracting herself from the contract became, in her words, \u201ca terrible experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust getting out of that process as a whole was crazy, and recovering financially from that as well was crazy,\u201d she said. \u201cIt hindered me from being able to get other opportunities, because a lot of people don\u2019t want to be involved with somebody who just has a lot of baggage.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Scrapping a Finished Project<\/h2>\n<p>During that period, Kering\u2019 released singles she now calls uninspired, sensing she was losing fans. Determined to stop operating on autopilot, she scrapped an entire EP that was already completed and mastered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe same day [my team] gave me a due date for the final masters, I just changed my mind,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI was like, no, this music is not a reflection of who I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She wrote \u2018The Lick Back\u2019 in three weeks, keeping the process close and resisting the overthinking that had previously diluted her work. \u201cIt was about trusting myself, but also accepting I might make bad decisions, and I need to be okay living with that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<h2>Songs of Boundaries and Value<\/h2>\n<p>The EP\u2019s lead single, \u201cNiwache,\u201d blends dancehall textures with a demand for clarity in love: \u201cKa hunitaki si uniwache (If you don\u2019t want me, just leave me).\u201d On \u201cGive Me My Money,\u201d the demand shifts to fair compensation and a critique of opaque music-business practices.<\/p>\n<p>Kering\u2019 argues that artists are often handed complex contracts without the legal or business knowledge to parse them. \u201cThey know that artists don\u2019t go to school for this,\u201d she said. \u201cThey can write over-complicated contracts in a way that the artist is not going to understand. That\u2019s why artists need to consider that their managers need to know business, and they need to know law.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>An Independent Path, Not a Rejection of Labels<\/h2>\n<p>Going independent is expensive and difficult, she acknowledges, but the experience taught her that corporations are not as intimidating as they appear when an artist has a genuine fan base and community. \u201cI\u2019m not opposed to labels,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m opposed to a bad deal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikita Kering\u2019 has released \u2018The Lick Back,\u2019 a five-song EP written in three weeks after she scrapped a previous project and exited her major-label deal.","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_display_header_overlay":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[516],"tags":[830,828,831,826,827,829],"class_list":["post-6199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture-lifestyle","tag-independent-artist","tag-kenyan-rb","tag-music-contracts","tag-nikita-kering","tag-the-lick-back","tag-universal-music-africa","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nikita Kering\u2019 \u2018The Lick Back\u2019 EP Marks Independent Return<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kenyan singer Nikita Kering\u2019 releases her first independent EP, \u2018The Lick Back,\u2019 after leaving Universal Music Africa. 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