Michael Kiwanuka is very pleased to announce details of his stunning third album, KIWANUKA.
KIWANUKA is released on 25th October 2019 through Polydor Records. It is the follow-up to Michael’s number 1 album, Love & Hate, released back in July 2016 that resonated broadly both critically and in the public’s affections, netting the British musician his second Mercury Prize nomination and his second and third BRIT nominations too.
Recorded in New York, LA and London, Michael returned to the studio with Danger Mouse and Inflo, the same production team that combined so magnificently on Love & Hate, KIWANUKA finds a new assuredness in Michael’s writing, and takes the basic sonic blueprint of that last record to a dizzying new realm.
Introduced here with You Ain’t The Problem, Michael’s typically assured, bold, and strident vocal brims with confidence, but what it conceals is almost two years questioning his own ability and identity. How do you follow a record that achieved everything he had ever wanted to achieve? How do you contain the pressure you put on yourself, let alone the expectations to everybody else? What are the expectations of a Michael Kiwanuka record? Does any of it matter?
He perhaps needn’t have worried too much. KIWANUKA sets off on a journey that evokes the psychedelic haze of its predecessor, but ramps up a very broad sense of scale. With his exquisite band of players, Michael channels an assortment of the late greats (a nod to Gil Scott-Heron here, Bobby Womack flecked there, and the ever present Otis Redding vocally) for a richly rewarding record that sits typically at odds with the notion and expectations of a successful British singer-songwriter in 2019, and moves even further away from the folk-imbued vintage soul of his debut album, Home Again, back in 2012.
Following a headline performance at this year’s End of the Road Festival in September, Michael will take KIWANUKA out on the road for the rest of this year and next, with the first UK shows announced today for March 2020.
Full details of the tour are listed below, with tour tickets on general sale from Friday 23rdAugust via THIS LINK
Pre-order KIWANUKA HERE
*NEW* UK Headline Dates, 2020:
2nd March – O2 Guildhall, Southampton
3rd March – O2 Academy, Bournemouth
5th March -O2 Academy Brixton, London
6th March – O2 Academy, Birmingham
7th March – O2 Apollo, Manchester
9th March – Corn Exchange, Cambridge
10th March – De Montford Hall, Leicester
12th March – O2 Academy, Leeds
13th March – O2 Academy, Newcastle
14th March – Barrowlands, Glasgow
