Alone Doesn’t Work

SXTN was a Berlin duo that made songs about their actual lives. Parties, late nights, the city, whatever was happening. Juju and Nura had this thing where every song felt real—crude when it needed to be, funny, sometimes thoughtful, but always honest. They were the voice of this generation living for right now, not thinking about what comes next. Watching them perform, that energy was something.

But they’re done now. Or on pause. Or sick of each other. Who knows. Both of them are going solo and it doesn’t work.

Juju put out Intro as a prelude to her album dropping in May. Nura just released Sativa, which is about her thing with weed—a chill, low-key club track that floats along without asking much of you. It’s perfectly fine. But as a duo they had this force, and alone each of them is maybe half of what that was. Sativa is a nice song but it doesn’t hit anything in me. I listen and I’m just waiting for something that doesn’t come.

Someone said it right on YouTube: why not just make SXTN again? You’re both putting out music anyway. You’re both less apart than together. That’s the brutal thing about a band breaking up—it’s not even that they’re bad, just diminished. You feel the missing piece every time.

Nura’s got her Habibi album and she’s doing the Allo Leute tour. I’m not sure I want to see her solo when I’m still thinking about what they were when there were two of them.