There comes a point in a relationship when holding on starts to hurt more than letting go. That moment sits at the heart of “Kentili,” the first collaboration between Zeyne and MANAL, who turn the complicated emotions of heartbreak into a conversation about boundaries, disappointment and knowing when enough is enough.
Released on 16 October, “Kentili” brings together 2 distinct musical identities. After years of mutual admiration, the artists finally joined forces on a track that explores the same emotional experience through different perspectives. While one voice questions what went wrong, the other confronts the exhaustion of giving everything to someone who could not offer the same in return.
COMPLEX MENA: “Kentili” captures that moment when heartbreak starts turning into clarity. What part of that emotional journey do you personally connect with most?
ZEYNE: I think I connect most with the moment where the clarity finally outweighs the hurt. You can still care, you can still be disappointed, but at some point you realise you’ve already given everything you could and you don’t want to keep abandoning your own boundaries just to hold onto something. There’s a bit of attitude in that shift too, which I really connected with. It’s not just sadness, it’s that feeling of being fed up enough to finally choose yourself. The song carries that push and pull really clearly, especially between still chasing something emotionally and knowing you’ve already been let down.
MANAL: I connect most with the moment you start being honest with yourself. You can still care about someone and realise that a relationship isn’t right for you anymore. Accepting that can be painful, especially when you’ve held on to what you hoped things could become. But there’s also a sense of relief in it. For me, that’s where the clarity begins: when you trust what you feel enough to stop making excuses for it.
COMPLEX MENA: You approach the story through two different perspectives. How did you decide what each of you would bring to the narrative?
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ZEYNE: I don’t think we sat down and assigned each other a role in the story. It happened much more naturally through the way we each connected to the emotion. There are parts of the song that are still asking questions and sitting in the hurt, and other parts that feel sharper, like you’ve reached the point where you know what happened and you’re done trying to make excuses for it. Manal and I could each lean into those feelings in our own way, so it became two perspectives on the same experience rather than us trying to tell exactly the same story.
MANAL: For me, it was important that both voices felt honest and had their own place in the story. Two people can experience something similar and carry it very differently. I wanted to bring that tension between still feeling attached and knowing you need to move forward. Having another perspective gives the song more emotional depth, because heartbreak rarely comes with one clear feeling or one version of the truth.
COMPLEX MENA: Female artists are often pitted against each other, even when their music occupies completely different spaces. How important is it to you to challenge that narrative through collaborations like this one?
ZEYNE: It’s really important to me because I think that comparison is something women are made to deal with far more than we should be. What I loved about working with Manal is that neither of us needed to take up less space for the other person to shine. She came into the process completely herself, and I could do the same. There was so much encouragement in the studio, and I learned a lot from being around someone who has had such a strong career and still approaches music with so much openness. I’d love to see more women in the region working together from that place, because collaboration doesn’t take anything away from your individuality. If anything, it can show you another side of it.
MANAL: It’s very important to me. I want to be able to appreciate another woman’s talent without it becoming a comparison or a conversation about who’s better. We each have our own voice, our own story, and there’s room for all of that. Collaborating is a very natural way to show it. You respect each other’s work, you create something together, and hopefully that encourages more women to do the same.
COMPLEX MENA: You both have very distinct sounds and musical influences. What did working together unlock creatively that you might not have explored on your own?
ZEYNE: It made me loosen up in certain ways. Manal has this confidence in following an instinct and not boxing herself into one idea of what her music is supposed to sound like, and being around that definitely rubbed off on me. I tend to approach things from a very melodic place and can be quite detailed about how I want an emotion to land, whereas she brought an energy and rhythmic instinct that pulled me somewhere different. It was fun to meet that rather than stay completely inside what I already know. That’s probably what I enjoyed most about the collaboration. I came out of it feeling like there are parts of my sound I can push further than I might have thought before
MANAL: It gave me the chance to hear my own voice in a different context. When you work on your own, you have certain instincts you naturally return to. Sharing a song with someone who has a different musical identity makes you listen differently and think about how your voices can respond to each other. I love that exchange, finding a connection while still leaving space for what makes each of us unique.
