It is the kind of fame that can push any young singer off the rails.
Ever since singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka emerged in 2012 with a fistful of heart rending soul songs and a voice reminiscent of Otis Redding, the then 25-year-old Londoner took the UK music industry by storm.
Before long he supported Adele in London’s Royal Albert Hall (a good ten minute walk from home) and released two critically lauded albums. The buzz even spread across the Atlantic with hip-hop star Kanye West flying him to Hawaii for an informal jam session.
While the collaboration didn't bear fruit to any songs, Kiwanuka's US fan base has grown on the back of select songs played in popular dramas The Get Down on Netflix and HBO's Big Little Lies.
With all that going on, not to mention performing to a huge crowd in last month's mammoth Glastonbury Festival in the UK, you can totally understand the apparently jubilant celebration that is the latest single Money.
A collaboration with English musician and producer Tom Misch, the song is a funky ode to living your best life. Or so it seems.
Behind Kiwanuka’s silky declarations that he “could buy you an aeroplane and fly you around the world”, lies a cautionary tale on some of the excesses that can come on the back of fame and success. Hence, why, for example, you wont see reports of Kiwanuka partying in Ibiza this summer.
He would rather be in Morocco performing as part of the Jazzablanca Festival instead.
“Yeah, I would rather just be out here doing my normal thing and that’s performing,” he says before outlining his ambivalent relationship with fame.
“I see this a lot in pop music and that’s people going crazy because they get so much money. It makes you ask how much is enough? And once you get passed that, you either get a breakdown, freak out or go to rehab. The song is comes from me asking the question: once you reach a certain level of fame, what do you really have?”
These kind of existential forays ironically resulted in Kiwanuka’s growing fan base and increasingly lucrative world tours.
More than his underrated guitar chops and passionate vocals, his songs always dealt with the grey matter of life. In his 2012 debut Home Again, Kiwanuka was interested in the emotional tension that precurse our mistakes (Worry Walks Beside Me and I Won't Lie), while in 2016's lavish Love and Hate he examines the unresolved answers left in the wake of heartbreak.
From the @Jazzablancafest in Morocco, UK soul singer Michael Kiwanuka tells @TheNationalUAE the meaning behind his funky new song Money. pic.twitter.com/bt9ZdZcpfH
— Saeed Saeed (@SaeedSquared) July 5, 2019
He explains this attraction to life’s messier details hails from his own experience growing up as a singer of British Ugandan heritage.
Where in concert, the 2016 song Black Man in a White World has the crowd on the feat and clapping along, Kiwanuka says the anxiety detailed within are real.
For one thing, he recalls being often the only black guy in his group of of friends who like guitar based artists such as Bob Dylan.
“I definitely felt a bit out of place generally. There was that cultural aspect but that extended to other things,” he says.
“Even when I got into the music industry I definitely felt different. I felt that way when I was trying to get a record deal and where I fit in pop culture and what is happening right now. I never had that feeling where everything is just normal. That gave me this itch to create these songs and put these words down. I think deep down everyone feels that way in a certain part of their lives.”
With that being said, Kiwanuka is enjoying the relative comforts that come with success.
“Things are changing in that I am becoming part of the mainstream conversation now,” he says. “The festival slots are getting nicer and I am travelling to more great places and more people are coming to the shows. It’s great, man.”
And that trajectory is only set to grow with Kiwanuka's anticipated third album to be released in October. He confirms the songs from the yet to be titled project are done and will continue in exploring the lush sounds found in Love and Hate.
“It is done with the same team that did that album,” he says.
“I would say that it is more vivid and colourful and hopefully will create a whole world for the listener to really get lost in. I am excited for people to listen to it.”
And if the album fulfils Kiwanuka’s promise and eventually takes him to an Ed Sheeran-esque level of stardom, it will all be taken in a slow and steady stride.
After all, it is the Ugandan way.
“I have a laid back attitude to life and that really shocks people in the UK. I am very slow paced and only do a couple of things a day,” Kiwanuka says.
“And in Uganda, that is how a lot of the older men are like. We walk slow and if plans change then they change. We just live. We exist.”
