In November 2019, Michael Kiwanuka released his third album Kiwanuka at what felt like the edge of the world; the decade was drawing to a close and the pandemic that put the world on lockdown was just months away. He sings of such a place on LP highlight “Solid Ground,” musing about how “it feels to be alone” away from all the noise and bustle, imagining himself standing on his cliff “where there'll be no one around.” It was a moment and a message that proved prescient.
Kiwanuka it was, by design, the singer-songwriter's magnum opus. The album reached No. 2 of the UK Official Albums Chart and The Guardian he called it “one of the best albums of the decade” right at the buzzer. It soon earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album and won the prestigious Mercury Prize in the UK. How does one track an album with such acclaim?
You don't, Kiwanuka says Bulletin board at Universal Music's offices in London, where he is signed to Polydor Records: “All I knew was that I wanted to do something different so it was harder to compare. It was a good push to choose another direction creatively without losing who I am.”
This change is his fourth album Minor Changeswhich was released on November 22. The London-born, Southampton-based artist maintains his signature sound, combining sweet soulful grooves and melodies with elements of psych and funk, but takes things back a notch.
He deliberately focused on making his vocals more of a presence, something he was hesitant to do during his decade-long career. Hear it on “Rest of Me,” where his rich voice sits atop a bass and shuffle beats. In the past, additional flushes of production would lead the listener's ears elsewhere, but here his voice is at the heart of the song's success.
“I have this obsession now with the idea that if a busker can play the song, and it sounds good it's going through a really sh-tty amp and his voice is through a bad mic,” he says. “If the song and the lyrics still move you, you've done the hardest thing.”
Michael Kiwanuka
Marco Gray
Kiwanuka signed to Polydor in 2011 and a year later won the BBC Sound of… poll, a new music-focused list which has also won Adele, Haim, Sam Smith and PinkPantheress. His debut album was released Home Again in 2012, and then topped the UK Albums Chart with his second LP in 2016 Love & Hate. His song “Cold Little Heart” was featured in the latter and was selected by HBO as the first theme for the hit TV drama Big Little Liesstarring Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman. The song now has over 307 million streams on Spotify.
It was at that moment that Kiwanuka formed a formidable relationship. It came with superstar producer Danger Mouse, one half of pop group Gnarls Barkley and London-based producer Inflo, the mastermind behind the mysterious Sault project, which Kiwanuka has briefly played as a part of. The trio have since collaborated on what Kiwanuka calls a “trilogy” of records, Love & Hate, Kiwanuka and Minor Changes.
“In 20 years, this will still be the most painful creative relationship I'll ever have,” says Kiwanuka. He feels all three came together “just when we needed it”. Danger Mouse – whose production credits include Adele 25Gorillaz' Days of Demons and U2 Songs of innocence – found a “passion for making records again” and drew Kiwanuka and Inflo as “two young black men trying to prove themselves” in the music industry. “Two different people opened up to me at the same time, in different ways.”
The comfort and trust in this relationship allowed Kiwanuka to make his most authentic record and usher in a stylish new era. Small Changes” The accompanying visuals are striking in their simplicity: the video for the single “Lowdown” takes six minutes of a lone cyclist at dusk. During his performance at Glastonbury Festival in June, Kiwanuka paid tribute to his upbringing by wearing a Kanzu robe, a traditional outfit in Uganda where his parents immigrated before he was born.
Kiwanuka has spoken in the past about feeling “impostor syndrome” but that the shifting sands on which the music industry rests now offer artists opportunities. “It is [major labels] nowhere near as powerful as they once were when I was starting out, running the store and telling people what to do. It seemed like everything they said was gospel. It affected the way you made music, or at least it affected your confidence.”
Kiwanuka points to Irish rock band Fontaines DC and up-and-coming American guitarist and producer Mk.gee as examples of artists who have transcended the noise to release impressive original LPs in recent months.
“The unstable relationship of the industry has made it really artist-friendly, because nobody knows what to do,” he says. “So they let you create and they let you make records and experiment because they don't know what to say… which is fantastic!”
Kiwanuka
Marco Gray
Building confidence in his creative output and vocals has been a hard-earned journey. He credits the move away from London with giving him extra confidence in his abilities: “You hear your own voice a bit louder, but you have to have a bit more conviction because you have no choice. You don't have much to compare it to.”
What would he tell his younger self, the one who wants to please the public, his label and live up to his own personal standards? “There is power in your voice. People are always trying to tell you but you don't listen,” he says. “You're always taking advice from other people, so you always think validation is going to come from outside, and then one day you realize it's not.”
He adds, “I've always tried to sound like my favorite singers, or [thinking] that [my vocals] they weren't good enough. But now I think I just want to sound like me.”
