This is an exceptionally compelling, absorbing, rich, and genuinely human piece of work.
As well as being his most reflective album, it’s also Kiwanuka’s most hopeful.
The soulful singer’s third LP is timeless and contemporary at the same time, with shades of everything from What’s Going On to Screamadelica.
Kiwanuka rewards your commitment from the first second to the last.
Kiwanuka is therapeutic for all parties involved. It's honest, psychedelic, enlightening and recalls blackness defined by acoustic folk and the organic soul of past artists like Gil Scott-Heron, Bobby Womack and Otis Redding.
Blending a range of influences, sounds and themes to ensure a creative and compelling end result, this is one of the very finest recent R&B records, blending the personal, political, and pure to dazzling effect.
Kiwanuka is loaded with memorable songs, but the best way to experience them is by listening to the album from start to finish.
You will be inspired by his respectful, authentic and memorable nod to his old soul idols (from Gil Scott-Heron to Bobby Womack) but most importantly you are likely to be inspired to follow his new found courage on self-belief.
KIWANUKA doesn’t waste a single one of its 51 minutes, and seems destined to receive the same sort of acclaim as its predecessor.
Michael Kiwanuka has undoubtedly created a timeless album, one made with impressive confidence.
KIWANUKA is a breathtaking retro-futuristic hybrid of funk, soul, rock and folk that somehow exists in all of the past 50 years at once. It’s a tumultuous record, at once confessional and restive, and shot through with a quiet anguish.
The album even manages to feel shorter than it is, as Kiwanuka efficiently communicates a complex emotional arc with ease and assurance, reflecting the statement of fact and headlong gaze present on Kiwanuka’s cover.
Packed with vibrating soul and lush textures, it’s a recipe everyone will be looking to copy but no-one will be able to master like the man himself.
This isn’t as immediately powerful or riveting as Love & Hate. But the multifaceted material, along with the pioneering, organic and often offbeat production, grows on you.
The record is an introspective mix of psychey soul, blues, rock and funk, which skips and strolls and swaggers through its 13 tracks – but it is not simply an exercise in nostalgia.
As fine as Love & Hate was -- worthy of all its accolades -- Kiwanuka stands head and shoulders above it as a complex, communicative, poetic, and sometimes even profound collection that wears its heart on its sleeve and its sophistication in its grooves.
Kiwanuka could very well be one of the best albums of 2019. But Kiwanuka is also a beautiful, deep place that feels like it will be worth visiting, not just in the last month of this year, but throughout a listener's lifetime.
At times, it doesn’t all come together quite as well as we would hope, but Kiwanuka continues to push the boundaries of the retro-soul sound and the strong moments on Kiwanuka hit hard.
Featuring harps and children’s choirs, Kiwanuka could have gone off the rails, but it has the songs and the focused intent to convince.
The London singer-songwriter's Danger Mouse and Inflo-produced latest feels like an easy listen at first, but eventually reveals its mournful and even despairing heart.
Evidently, the singer/songwriter's abilities have matured at an incredible pace since his first and second efforts.
What it lacks in immediacy, Kiwanuka more than makes up for in sheer declarative artistry.
His third offering is his most fully-formed work, a meditative, expansive collection of synth-psych, blues-rock, stately folk that amounts to an early-career opus for the 32 year-old singer-songwriter.
Head-scratching interludes notwithstanding, Michael Kiwanuka's latest album is his boldest yet.
Kiwanuka is equal to the challenge, combining Kiwanuka’s Stateside-facing retro soul with broader, occasionally more Afrocentric influences.
#1 | / | Magnet |
#2 | / | God Is In The TV |
#2 | / | Good Morning America |
#2 | / | Q Magazine |
#3 | / | BBC Radio 6 Music |
#4 | / | Chicago Tribune: Greg Kot |
#4 | / | musicOMH |
#5 | / | Gigwise |
#5 | / | OOR |
#6 | / | Albumism |