''Kiwanuka'' is the third

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by English singer-songwriter

Michael Kiwanuka Michael Samuel Kiwanuka (born 3 May 1988) is a British singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is currently signed to Polydor Records. His debut album '' Home Again'' (2012) went gold in the United Kingdom, while his second album ...

. It was released on 1 November 2019 through

Polydor Polydor Limited, also known as Polydor Records, is a 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 ...

and

Interscope Records Interscope Records is an American record label based in Santa Monica, California, owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. Founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture ...

. The album won the 2020

Mercury Prize The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual Music award, music prize awarded for the best album released by a musical act from the Music of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom or Music of Ireland, Ireland. It was cre ...

, 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 sever ...

at the

63rd Grammy Awards The 63rd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held in and around the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles on March 14, 2021. It recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, running from September 1, 201 ...

Critical reception

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

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

, ''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 Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' 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, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'', 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 the chief music critic for ''The Daily Telegraph'' since 1996, and presented a music interview show for Vintage TV (TV channel), Vintage TV i ...

of ''

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

'' 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 Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

'',

Ann Powers Ann K. Powers (born February 4, 1964) is an American writer and popular 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 written for other publicat ...

cited ''Kiwanuka'' as proof that the album format is not dead but rather undergoing a "metamorphosis", with artists such as Kiwanuka utilizing the

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

through the culturally-relevant autobiographical narratives, which in this case is a "

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

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 and printed liner notes.Image of first of two credit pages in CD booklet
on

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

. Musicians *

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

Inflo Dean Josiah Cover (born 4 June 1988), professionally known as Inflo, is a British producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He helms the R&B music collective project Sault (band), Sault, which foregrounds black-centric issues. Career In ...

– drums , percussion , piano , synthesizer , organ , keyboards ,

programming Program (American English; also Commonwealth English in terms of computer programming and related activities) or programme (Commonwealth English in all other meanings), programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program m ...

, electric guitar , background vocals , vocals * Kadeem Clarke – synthesizer , keyboards , piano ,

Wurlitzer electric piano The Wurlitzer electronic piano is an electric piano manufactured and marketed by Wurlitzer from 1954 to 1983. Sound is generated by striking a metal reed with a hammer, which induces an electric current in a pickup. It is conceptually similar to ...

Danger Mouse Danger Mouse is a British action cartoon which has had two incarnations: * ''Danger Mouse'' (1981 TV series), a 1981 British animated television series * ''Danger Mouse'' (2015 TV series), a 2015 reboot of the British animated television series ...

– programming , percussion and tambourine , electric guitar , keyboards * Jean Kelly – harp * Dizzy Daniel Moorehead – saxophone * George Hogg – trumpet * Chloe Vincent – flute * Nathan Allen – percussion * James Casey, Alecia Chakour, Jasmine Muhammed, Saundra Williams – background vocals * Paul Boldeau, Yolanda Greaves, LaDonna Harley Peters – background vocals * Wired Strings :* Natalia Bonner – violin :* Zara Benyounes – violin :* Sally Jackson, Patrick Kiernan, Steve Morris – violin :* Anna Croad – violin :* Stephanie Cavey – violin :* Deborah Widdup – violin :* Eleanor Mathieson – violin :* Gillon Cameron, Helen Hathorn, Hayley Pomfrett, Kotono Sato, Ellie Stanford – violin :* Jenny Sacha – violin :* Sarah Sexton – violin :* Nick Barr – viola :* Bruce White – viola :* Fiona Leggat, Emma Owens – viola :* Rosie Danvers – cello , string arrangements :* Bryony James – cello :* Richard Pryce – double bass Technical * Danger Mouse – producer * Inflo – producer ,

recording engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproducti ...

, mixer * Kennie Takahashi – recording engineer , mixer * Tom Campbell – assistant recording engineer , recording engineer , strings recording engineer * Richard Woodcraft – mixer , strings recording engineer , vocal 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 Nu ...

–

mastering engineer Mastering is a form of audio post production which is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the Audio mixing (recorded music), final mix to a data storage device called a master recording, the source ...

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