Michael Kiwanuka has spoken to NME about his upcoming fourth album ‘Small Changes’, and the need for larger companies in the music industry to feed back into the grassroots.
The singer-songwriter’s new effort sees him teaming up once again with Danger Mouse and Inflo – who also produced his previous two albums, including 2019’s Mercury Prize-winning ‘Kiwanuka’. Having described the soul-influenced ‘Small Changes’ as “understated”, the artist explained how the sound was a reaction to the maximalism of its predecessor.
“I remember sitting there in the studio and thinking: ‘What would it sound like without trying really hard to be cool or accepted?’,” he told NME. “With ‘Kiwanuka’ and [2016’s] ‘Love & Hate’, I wanted to show that I could be a creative, interesting artist as well as the singer-songwriter. I wanted to expand on what people thought I was. With this one, I was like, ‘I don’t wanna focus on anything other than my instincts’.”
He continued: “Maybe that’s also getting older – you try really hard to fit in and then you get to a point where you’re just happy with what you are, you know?”
During our interview, the 37-year-old reflected on the fact that, as a Black teenager who loved artists such as Duster and Nirvana, he felt frustrated at not seeing Black musicians in guitar bands. Noting that things have now changed, indie-loving Kiwanuka (who described Cindy Lee’s 2024 album ‘Diamond Jubilee’ as “one of the best things I’ve ever heard in my life”) praised genre-blurring contemporary Black artists such as Steve Lacy, Baby Rose and Hak Baker.
Since our interview, the UK Government has backed a levy on arena-sized and larger gigs to do provide lifeline funds for grassroots venues and artists – something that Kiwanuka said was essential. Check out our full chat below.
NME: Hello Michael. What is it about your dynamic with Danger Mouse and Inflo that works so well?
Michael Kiwanuka: “It’s unique. If we could put our fingers on it, maybe it wouldn’t work. We sort of don’t fully know. I know that they’re two amazing minds that see the world in unique, interesting ways. We’re just lucky. Our way of thinking creates something. I remember ‘Flo saying: ‘I don’t know what we do, really, but it works.’”
The cover of the album depicts a young boy with a pair of hands stretching, perhaps ominously, out to him. What does that image mean to you?
“It’s based on a photograph we loved – I’m a fan of photography. It was a black-and-white photo, from the ‘60s, of an Asian kid. He’s looking into the camera and there’s two hands, in a suit – so, very formal. It’s a gripping photograph. It’s like: ‘Wow: whatever happens now is going to inform the rest of his life. The way he thinks, the things he might have to battle against. It was almost like he was deciding there and then, as a four-year-old boy, ‘What’s gonna be my path?’
“For me that was quite poignant. I wanted to recreate that feeling but make it more relevant to me, so we turned it from an Asian kid to a Black kid. I was thinking of how every passage you take is a change in your trajectory. You don’t know you’re doing it, but these tiny movements make a massive impact. That’s why I called the album ‘Small Changes’.”
You have a young family of your own, which must have influenced you in that respect…
“Big time. I started to look back loads on my childhood and actually felt really lucky in how the smallest conversations and things that are said to you really direct your whole way of thinking. It either keeps you in a place that’s good, confident and happy, or it’s something you have to work against. With young people, you realise how important everything you say is. It’s quite scary!”
You’ve said the track ‘Floating Parade’ is about escaping from anxiety. What makes you anxious in 2024?
“Wow. A lot! Climate change: by the end of 2024, it will be the hottest year we’ve ever had. Wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The cost of living. There are so many scary things. Even in music and creativity, people say it’s not worth anything anymore and there’s no money in it. Then there’s the [US] election! Everything seems to be on a knife edge. Playing music is a way not to have to think about heavy, heavy things all the time. Sometimes it can actually give you the strength to deal with some difficult things.”
When we spoke just before the release of the acclaimed ‘Kiwanuka’, you discussed the confidence issues that had dogged you for years. Did the response to that record help you on that journey?
“Yeah. Huge. It was a long process, that, but in a massive way it culminated in the Mercury win. You never make music for an accolade, but I couldn’t believe that would happen.”
Really? Have you heard that record?
“It’s so hard to hear your music in that same way because you’re always trying to fix it. You’re like: ‘I wouldn’t do that now.’” [With the Mercury win], I was like, ‘Oh, wow, you can make stuff that you love and it can really touch people.’ That blew me away. It re-centred me to focus more on intuition and natural expression without fear of not being good enough. After COVID, I was playing out in the US and rooms were full. I was thinking, ‘Wow – people are really connecting with this. I’ve gotta enjoy this ‘cause it’s amazing. That’s enough of that now. Let’s just live.’
“I guess that imposter syndrome is deep-rooted, so you just always think it’s someone else. Even with this album: you’re pleased with it, you’re finished and you can’t wait for people to hear it, but I don’t expect people to automatically enjoy what I’m doing.”
You’ve said of following ‘Kiwanuka’: “If I miss, I don’t lose anything”. A lot of musicians might not feel that way about following such a successful record…
“Some days I believe that [statement], some days I don’t. In 2009, when I signed a record deal to be a singer-songwriter, I was like, ‘This is crazy!’ It’s still the same thought process. You’re thinking: ‘Well, this isn’t gonna last, but let me just do one.’ So you survive one, you do a second one and that does a bit better and you’re like, ‘Wow, we’re still here… I got away with it again!”
“I got away with it again, and then you do a third… At that point, you can’t really miss because you feel like you’ve had three feet in the door through the back way and in your head you’re still like, ‘How did I get away with this?’ Some people might think, ‘I have to do this, I have to win that.’ But with me, there’s joy in the novelty of being able to be on a fourth album. I know that sounds mad, but it really frees me up. I listened to Danger Mouse in school and he’s still up for doing another album! It’s like, ‘Wow – this is going well!’
“The imposter syndrome has positives and negatives. It keeps you, sometimes, in the right place: you just focus on the music and you’re always happy and excited.”
The guitar-based track ‘Lowdown (part i)’ is semi-fictionalised. Which bits are about you?
“It’s me harking back to my teenage years, getting into music, starting my first band and feeling a little disgruntled – your classic teenager. In that one song, I made the band that I never felt I could be in. I’ve always been into indie music and wanted to be in a guitar band, but it’s just never materialised. That’s my wildest dream to this day, even if there was just a side project where I could do that.
“Back [in my teens], people found it really weird that a Black dude would be into indie. It would always piss me off and I’d scour magazines like Q and Kerrang! and be really annoyed because there’s just no Black people. You think: no one’s gonna hire me in a band, so you just didn’t do it.
“Luckily, times have changed. People don’t think boxed-up anymore. It’s really cool now. That’s one of the things I’m the opposite of being anxious about: how young Black people are broadening their own idea of themselves musically or creatively. Whether it’s picking up a guitar or making a flashy indie or rapping, it doesn’t matter. Whereas in 2001, it was quite rare.”
Did you meet anyone along the way who shared your outlook?
“Working with Danger Mouse was huge for me for that reason. Listening to his music in school – even then, not knowing much about music – I could hear a slight difference: ‘This guy seems to be into stuff that maybe I would be into. I love hip-hop and soul, but he seems to also like indie. I’ve never met any Black guy that likes indie!’ I knew when we first started working together, it would probably work because we probably had similar feelings.”
What kind of guitar music were you listening to as a teenager?
“I listened to a lot of American, grungy [stuff]. I just loved Blur and I loved Graham Coxon loads.”
Have you met him yet?
“I met him at one of the African Express [Damon Albarn’s initiative to cross-pollinate music between African, Middle Eastern and Western countries] things. Blur did, like, three songs. There was an amazing moment when Damon Albarn turned up – he walks about like a town crier sort of guy. I walked into a pub upstairs and it was Paul Simonon [of The Clash and Albarn’s band The Good, The Bad & The Queen] playing bass with Slaves [now named Soft Play]. Dave Rowntree [Blur drummer] and Graham Coxon walked in, sat next to me and just started chatting. I tried to play it cool, but in my head, I was like, ‘Oh my Gosh!’”
Like a lot of musicians, you’ve expressed concern about the rising costs of live shows. What needs to change?
“Oh, man. I wish I knew the answer, but I am really concerned about it. Wow. Jeez! It’s hard with the cost of living – because where does money come from? – but [we need] funding for small, grassroots venues to come back and create more of an infrastructure for artists to build their trade. Also, we need to create more places to go and see music for a lower price to get people back into going to shows… and maybe to join the EU again.”
That’d be good!
“That’d be amazing! All I can talk from is my own experience. Your fans give you so much, stick with you, wait five years for an album, buy merch. [They do this] in a hard time. They buy tickets that are expensive in a time when it’s hard to just get through the month. You wanna give them the best show possible, but the costs are so high that it’s difficult to do that.
“It’s a case of finding some revenue from somewhere – maybe better cuts for the artists from Live Nation and some of the bigger companies. They’ve got a lot of money coming in. [They could give] grants and funding and tour supports for artists and to reinvest into small venues. That would be fantastic. I don’t know if that is the answer, because I’m not a politician, but there is money being made and it’s just being funnelled somewhere. It needs someone to give back out to the people.
“Us artists, we never really do tours to make money. That’s why we do stupid things like have big productions and we lose it all, because that’s our time to connect with our fans who are the only reason we can do the best job in the world. We’re not trying to rip anyone off. [We] need better merchandising cuts for the artists – everything just needs to be better cuts – for the creatives and the independent businesses and venues. Maybe that might help.”
Kiwanuka releases ‘Small Changes’ on November 22 via Polydor. Check out his upcoming tour dates below and visit here for tickets and more information.
NOVEMBER
23 – HMV, Birmingham
24 – Jacaranda Baltic, Liverpool (in association with Jacaranda)
25 – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds (in association with Crash)
27 – The Level, Nottingham (in association with Rough Trade)
28 – Pryzm, Kingston Upon Thames (in association with Banquet)
DECEMBER
2 – The 1865, Southampton (in association with Vinilo)
FEBRUARY 2025
25 – Sporthalle, Hamburg
26 – AFAS Live, Amsterdam
28 – Le Zénith, Paris
MARCH 2025
1 – Forest National, Brussels
3 – Alcatraz, Milan
4 – Halle 622, Zurich
6 – Zenith, Munich
7 – Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt
9 – Civic Hall, Wolverhampton
10 – Eventim Apollo, London
12 – Usher Hall, Edinburgh
13 – O2 Apollo, Manchester