''Kiwanuka'' is the third studio album by English singer-songwriter

Michael Kiwanuka Michael Samuel Kiwanuka (born 3 May 1987) is a British singer-songwriter and record producer who is signed with Polydor Records. His 2012 debut album, '' Home Again'', went gold in the United Kingdom and his second album, '' Love & Hate'', debu ...

. It was released on 1 November 2019 through

Polydor Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States ...

and Interscope Records. The album won the 2020

Mercury Prize The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the B ...

, and was nominated for

Best Rock Album The Grammy Award for Best Rock Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality albums in the rock music genre. Honors in sev ...

at the 63rd Grammy Awards. The opening title track to this album was used by broadcaster ITV as it's theme tune for it's coverage of the Men's Football Euros 2020.

Critical reception

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, ''Kiwanuka'' has a score of 89 out of 100 based on 21 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 8.5 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus. Dave Simpson of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' hailed ''Kiwanuka'' as a "bold, expansive, heartfelt, sublime album" and one of the best of the decade, while Dorian Lynskey of '' Q'' called it a "compassionate, career-defining masterpiece". In her review for ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'', Elizabeth Aubrey highlighted the personal nature of its lyrics, commending it as "a daring leap of self-affirmation."

Neil McCormick Neil McCormick (born 31 March 1961) is a British music journalist, author and broadcaster. He has been Chief Music Critic for ''The Daily Telegraph'' since 1996, and presented a music interview show for Vintage TV in the UK, Neil McCormick's Nee ...

of ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' described it as "an album in which a troubled spirit seeks the relief of music to mesmerising and charged effect." In a year-end essay for '' Slate'',

Ann Powers Ann K. Powers (born February 4, 1964) is an American writer and pop music critic. She is a music critic for NPR and a contributor at the ''Los Angeles Times'', where she was previously chief pop critic. She has also served as pop critic at ''The ...

cited ''Kiwanuka'' as proof that the format is not dead but rather undergoing a "metamorphosis", with artists such as Kiwanuka utilizing the concept album through the culturally-relevant autobiographical narratives, which in this case is a "

song cycle A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice ...

alchemizing violence through compassion". The album won the

2020. It was the third time in his career he had been nominated following nominations for '' Home Again'' and '' Love & Hate'' but the first time he had won.

Accolades

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from digital liner notes. Musicians *

– vocals , acoustic guitar , bass , percussion , electric guitar , keyboards , organ , piano , synthesizer *

Inflo Dean Josiah Cover, professionally known as Inflo, is an English record producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He helms the R&B music collective project Sault, which foregrounds black-centric issues. Career In 2014, British rock band ...

– background vocals , drums , electric guitar , percussion , piano , vocals , organ , synthesizer , keyboards , programming * Rosie Danvers – cello * Kadeem Clarke – keyboards , synthesizer , piano ,

Wurlitzer electric piano The Wurlitzer electronic piano is an electric piano manufactured and marketed by Wurlitzer from the mid-1950s to mid-1980s. Sound is generated by striking a metal reed with a hammer, which induces an electric current in a pickup. It is concept ...

* Danger Mouse – percussion and tambourine , electric guitar , programming , keyboards * Nick Barr – viola * Natalia Bonner – violin * Zara Benyounes – violin * Alecia Chakour – background vocals * James Casey – background vocals * Dizzy Daniel Moorehead – saxophone * Jasmine Muhammed – background vocals * LaDonna Harley Peters – background vocals * Paul Boldeau – background vocals * Saundra Williams – background vocals * Yolanda Greaves – background vocals * Bruce White – viola * Anna Croad – violin * Patrick Kiernan – violin * Sally Jackson – violin * Stephanie Cavey – violin * Steve Morris – violin * Bryony James – cello * Richard Pryce –

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

* Jean Kelly – harp * Emma Owens – viola * Fiona Leggat – viola * Deborah Widdup – violin * Eleanor Mathieson – violin * Ellie Stanford – violin * Gillon Cameron – violin * Hayley Pomfrett – violin * Helen Hathorn – violin * Kotono Sato – violin * Chloe Vincent – flute * Nathan Allen – percussion * George Hogg – trumpet * Jenny Sacha – violin * Sarah Sexton – violin Technical * Danger Mouse – producer * Inflo – producer , mixer , recording engineer *

Matt Colton Matt Colton (born 30 March 1975) is an English mastering engineer and member of the mastering group of the Music Producers Guild. He has mastered recordings for artists such as Muse, Coldplay, James Blake, George Michael, Hot Chip, Gary Numa ...

– mastering engineer * Richard Woodcraft – mixer , assistant recording engineer , vocal engineer , recording engineer * Kennie Takahashi – recording engineer , mixer * Tom Campbell – recording engineer , assistant recording engineer

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 2019 albums Michael Kiwanuka albums Interscope Records albums Mercury Prize-winning albums Albums produced by Danger Mouse (musician) Albums produced by Inflo