New York, NY (Top40 Charts) This nomination caps a powerful year for Michael, who won the 2020 Mercury Prize for Album of the Year for his critically hailed, third studio release, KIWANUKA, produced by Dangermouse and Inflo. Michael recently delivered a captivating performance for NPR's Tiny Desk At Home series, watch here. KIWANUKA saw well deserved media praise from various outlets such as The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The FADER, Associated Press, Vibe, HypeBeast, Magnet, INTERVIEW, Billboard,The Economist, The Nation, Flaunt, Sound Opinions, BUST, PopMatters, American Songwriter, PASTE, Relix, The Guardian Clash, GQ, NME and more, also landing spots on many best of 2019 lists.
KIWANUKA marked Michael Kiwanuka's third studio album and second produced by Danger Mouse and Inflo. This iteration of Kiwanuka finds him deep in the story-telling for which he's beloved, but with a raw intimacy and shared vulnerability that resonates even more profoundly than his previous work. KIWANUKA explores themes of self-love and empowerment and the release of doubt and pain. The bold, newly found confidence echoed throughout the album is heightened visually with iconic album art, the cover an original painting by Markeidric Walker featuring Kiwanuka as the subject of reinvention, quite literally here seen in royal attire. Weaving sounds of Woodstock-era rock, Americana and early soul over orchestral strings, woozy psych beats and found audio samples, KIWANUKA creates a contemporary sonic palette that could only be orchestrated by Michael.
Last year following the release of KIWANUKA, Michael played sold-out shows around the US and Europe, making TV appearances on Late Night With Stephen Colbert and
Ellen and performing on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic. Singles including "You Ain't The Problem" "Hero" and "
Light" were accompanied by powerful visuals representing the artist's brave and authentic message.
"a muscular, multilayered declaration of self-worth and reliance from an artist who has been open about his insecurities, both as a "Black Man in a White World," as he put it in a trenchant 2016 song, and as a rock and soul singer who was born into the wrong decade." - NEW YORK TIMES
"On his third album, this London-born son of Ugandan immigrants fully secures his place as an heir to socially conscious dreamers like
Stevie Wonder and Bill Withers. KIWANUKA is a song-suite that employs myriad musical palettes to explore the way culturally inherited trauma can invade the psyche, with love, self-awareness and righteous protest as the routes to soul survival."
- NPR
"Michael Kiwanuka's 3rd album is expressive wonder, an extremely successful example of being able to truly express yourself while possessing the talent in and around you for it to be more than a mere vanity exercise." - ASSOCIATED PRESS
"his most fully-formed work, a meditative, expansive collection of synth-psych, blues-rock, stately folk that amounts to an early-career opus" - ROLLING STONE
"Kiwanuka treats songs like ecosystems that stretch and flower after sunlight and soil tilling." - PITCHFORK
"one of the greatest albums of the decade" - THE GUARDIAN
UK singer-songwriter,
Michael Kiwanuka has been nominated for a 2020 Grammy for Best Rock Album!
