MICHAEL KIWANUKA
Kiwanuka POLYDOR
9/10
LOVE & Hate, Michael Kiwanuka’s 2016 breakthrough and UK chart-topper, was the result of a uniquely inspired collaboration that teamed the London-based singer-songwriter with two fellow polymaths: studio auteur/music scholar Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton and emerging hip-hop producer/multi-instrumentalist Inflo. Together, they built the tracks playing a variety of instruments, surrounding Kiwanuka’s strikingly soulful vocals and evocative guitar work with strings and female backing chorales. The LP’s centrepiece, “Black Man In A White World”, was Kiwanuka’s finest song to that point, while in the US, he went from virtual unknown to artist on the rise when “Cold Little Heart”’s captivating hook was used as the theme of HBO drama Big Little Lies.
The songwriter and his two cohorts were delighted by what they’d achieved, Kiwanuka calling Love & Hate “perfect – I wouldn’t change a thing”, and Burton citing Pink Floyd and Isaac Hayes as reference points: “I actually can’t wait to try to do it again some point.” Reuniting to create this follow-up album, Kiwanuka, Burton and Inflo have dipped into the same expansive palette – the washes of strings, the purring choirs, Burton’s fixation with vintage film music and Inflo’s dexterity on drums and all manner of analogue and electronic keyboards, while drawing on Kiwanuka’s acknowledged late-’60s and ’70s inspirations: Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, Isaac Hayes’ Hot Buttered Soul, Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information, Eddie Hazel’s Game, Dames And Guitar Thangs and, most prominently, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.
Kiwanuka is structured in movements, like a classical symphony, with shape-shifting interludes connecting one track to the next. The album’s first movement begins with the beating of congas and what sounds like a lo-fi recording of a Caribbean beach party, soon erupting into the visceral groove of “You Ain’t The Problem”, on which Kiwanuka sets his thematic course, shifting his ruminations into a social context as he confronts a chaotic world. “Don’t hesitate/Time heals the pain/You ain’t the problem,” he sings in the chorus, seemingly reassuring himself as well as all those reeling from the uncertainties of present-day existence. At the four-minute mark, the instrumentation and backing vocals drop away, isolating a delicate keyboard carrying the melody into the next track, “Rolling”, its hammering, Stax-like groove bringing additional urgency to
