Despite two hit albums, a sellout tour and an invitation from Kanye, the musician was plagued by doubt. Ahead of his remarkable third album, he reveals how he finally found peace
While Michael Kiwanuka was making his second album, Love & Hate, a few years ago, the 10-minute opening track, Cold Little Heart, was his nemesis. Every time it reappeared on the studio schedule, his heart sank. So he was gratified when, in 2016, he learned that this hard-won song would appear in a new
HBO miniseries called Big Little Lies. He assumed it would feature in just one scene. It was only when his social media following spiked and his US tour dates sold out immediately after the series debuted that he realised it was the actual theme tune. America, which had previously ignored him, was suddenly paying attention, albeit only to one song. At every promotional appearance he had to play Cold Little Heart. He was even invited to perform it on the Californian bridge featured in Big Little Lies but politely declined. He jokes that his US label would love it if he included Cold Little Heart on his new album, Kiwanuka, as well. He looks, if this is possible, apologetically annoyed. “I don’t want to be an ungrateful, entitled artist, but I do have other music.”
Frankly, it would be hard to find a musician less ungrateful and entitled than Kiwanuka. I suspect that the routine comparisons to Bill Withers and Terry Callier aren’t just because he’s a black man with a tender, supple voice and an acoustic guitar but because his
music radiates warmth and decency. Trailing shopping bags on the terrace of the Soho House members’ club in
London one sunny afternoon, the 32-year-old is no less likable. He’s come up from Southampton, where he recently moved with his wife after a lifetime in north London. “It’s not a rock’n’roll place,” he concedes, “but that suits me.” He greets questions with words of encouragement (“Yes! 100%!”) and, on the rare occasions when he feels compelled to swear, opts for a U-rated “flipping”.