British-Ghanaian singer/songwriter Nectar Woode delivers a smoldering and seductive meditation on identity, anxiety, and self-acceptance in “Only Happen” — a sweaty, soulful, slow-burning triumph of rhythm, resilience, and reclaiming one’s roots.
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Stream: “Only Happen” – Nectar Woode
The culture that you have created within yourself gets you through… accept yourself first and trust that your heritage is a constant theme in your life that can be discovered in a positive way moving forward.
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There’s a raw ache pulsing beneath Nectar Woode’s “Only Happen” – a tension between stillness and motion, vulnerability and resilience.
It’s a slow-burning, soul-stirring reckoning: Tender, yet intense. Smooth, yet smoldering. The track builds quietly around a deep, steady groove, with haunting melodies and hypnotic lyrics that explore identity, anxiety, and the search for belonging. It’s a masterclass in restraint and release – the kind of song that holds you close, even as it threatens to shatter.
At just 25 years old, Nectar Woode is already staking her place as one of the UK’s most vital voices in soul and R&B. The British-Ghanaian artist has performed alongside Leon Bridges and NAO, sold out London’s Omeara, and become a BBC Radio mainstay. A thoughtful, emotionally driven songwriter and soulful performer, she’s drawn comparisons to Lauryn Hill, Nina Simone, and Lianne La Havas – and yet her sound is entirely her own: Rooted in heritage, shaped by honesty, and elevated by sheer talent. A presenter on Soho Radio’s Women in Jazz and a vocal advocate for access to the arts, she blends warmth and purpose in everything she does.
“Only Happen” – the latest single off her upcoming EP it’s like I never left (out July 18th via Since 93 / Sony Music UK) – is one of Woode’s most arresting and emotionally exposed songs to date. Written with producer Jordan Rakei, the song began as a conversation about being of mixed heritage, and the complicated feelings that come with straddling cultures. “We both were talking about being of mixed heritage and sometimes feeling like you’re not really accepted by either side,” Woode tells Atwood Magazine. “So we wanted to talk about that feeling of being anxious and overthinking and feeling your own rhythm to accept yourself – to calm your anxiety.”
Bitterness in time
Don’t know where I’m going
Can’t quite read the signs
Scattered cross the sidewalk
All I wanted
To carry some self belief
But I’m haunted in a world
That won’t set me free
“All I wanted to carry some self-belief, but I’m haunted in a world that won’t set me free,” Woode sings in the pre-chorus, and the hurt is palpable – as is the raw, unvarnished hope woven into every line of the chorus: “Feeling the rhythm / Heading for the light.” These aren’t just beautiful lyrics; they’re affirmations. This is what it means to fight your way out of darkness – to carry yourself through.
“It shows the re-birth,” Woode says of the song. “Let’s me introduce myself properly with a kinda vibe. It’s dark, gritty and makes you feel uncomfortable. It’s about living a life where people judge you on your looks or don’t even notice you at all. The battle of being of mixed heritage and how that can impact your interactions with society, which leads you to feel unseen by the world.”
It’s about feeling your own rhythm in your soul and being in tune with yourself to head out of the darkness and into the light.
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The pain of displacement lives at the song’s core, particularly in Woode’s reflections on Ghana – her motherland, and a part of herself she spent years longing to know.
“I haven’t been to Ghana, and that is a huge 50% of my identity. I spent 25 years of my life wondering what Ghana would be like and having questions over my identity. Questions were running through my head like, will I be accepted? I’m a foreigner in my own country that makes up my DNA.”
When it gets so hard to fight
When you see right through the dark
Feeling the rhythm in
Heading for the light (Oh)
Tryna make me disappear
I swear I heard it all before
Feeling the rhythm
Heading for the light (Oh)
Only happen… only happen…
“Only Happen” captures that discomfort and turns it into a kind of catharsis. “The chorus gets us to a joyous place where you feel the rhythm and the soul (music) gets you closer to the light,” Woode explains. “The culture that you have created within yourself gets you through. No one will make you disappear from their judgement on how you should fit in – accept yourself first and trust that your heritage is a constant theme in your life that can be discovered in a positive way moving forward.”
Stillness in the air (Only Happen)
Catching onto something (Only Happen)
Angels pull me in close (Only Happen)
Whispers to keep going (Only Happen)
All I wanted
To carry some self belief
But I’m haunted
In a world that won’t set me free
That acceptance – of self, of story, of roots – fuels the emotional current running through this track. “This was one of the first songs I wrote as part of the EP,” she says, “and it framed the narrative of the EP as a return to home. But when I got to the motherland, it felt like I was never away from Ghana. I felt accepted straight away.”
“Follow your own intuition in life and trust yourself in getting out of anxious situations,” she adds. “That’s what I try to do anyway – hehe.”
When it gets so hard to fight
When you see right through the dark
Feeling the rhythm
Heading for the light (Oh)
Tryna make me disappear
I swear I heard it all before
Feeling the rhythm
Heading for the light (Oh)
When I got to the motherland, it felt like I was never away from Ghana. I felt accepted straight away.
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For those just discovering her, Woode offers a simple introduction: “It’s super soulful and warm, with jazzy chords. I love, love Lauryn Hill, Donny Hathaway and older soul singers – I want to make music that makes me happy and my audience happy. That’s the aim.”
Mission accomplished. “Only Happen” is a bold, breathtaking act of reclamation – one that soothes as it stings, and heals as it haunts. Nectar Woode isn’t just one to watch – she’s an artist whose voice, message, and music are already reshaping the soul landscape.
Holding that dream
A sign to believe
Haven’t seen anyone
Anyone but me
Maybe I won’t, ever forget
Darkness takes over me
Won’t let it rest
When it gets so hard to fight
When you see right through the dark
Feeling the rhythm
Heading for the light (Oh)
Tryna make me disappear
I swear I heard it all before
Feeling the rhythm
Heading for the light (Oh)
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© Desire Appau
© Desire Appau
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