Three years on from their last album Bastard Jargon, South African singer/songwriter Nakhane is coming back from what they describe as “a season of drought,” starting with a new cover of George Michael’s “A Different Corner” as the first of series of singles coming out in 2026.

Listen below:

“George has been with me my whole life,” they say. “When I was outed at 19, I thought about how he was entrapped in that bathroom in Los Angeles, and how he refused to let it fill him with shame. When I did an encore in Perth in 2023, jet-lagged, I opened my mouth and this song came out. I didn't plan it. It just happened.” 

“While the original was quite minimal in its production, it still had an electronic sensibility,” says Nakhane, explaining how they built the track using just two guitars and their voice. “I wanted to find out what the song was made of underneath all of that.”

As they conclude in a new essay “Me & George” published on Substack:

“The year George Michael died on Christmas Day I was devastated. So much of my adolescent and post-adolescent identity was shaped around my obsession with his music. When my voice broke, when my music teacher warned me to not sing as to not create any unnecessary strain on the adult voice that was developing, I had fallen in love with his album, Patience. As I was learning to sing again, struggling to hit notes that used to be easy for me, enduring the laughter and teasing from family members who could not believe that I couldn’t sing, I was slowly and gently teaching myself to sing again by singing along to Patience. And now here I am, in 2026, singing my interpretation of ‘A Different Corner’.”

The release of “A Different Corner” also includes the epic “Black Boys in the Night”, a song they originally put out last year during a time when they were “simply trying to survive.”

“The depletion I felt then was debilitating: I wasn't able to give the song the life it deserved because I was wrestling with a grief that refused to be reasoned with,” they said. “The water is clearing now. I wanted both songs to exist together, because that's what this period has actually been.”

Listen to “Black Boys in the Night” below:

Nakhane also revealed that they are working on two new albums, as well as a feature film that they hope to shoot before the end of the year.