The British singer-songwriter’s somber fifth album
After four celebrated albums, three with producer Danger Mouse, Michael Kiwanuka retreated to a small studio near his home in Southampton, England, to make his first self-produced record. The studio, named Dreamers, is a cramped space with instruments and equipment lining the walls, and a control board in the middle. Videographer Jodie Canwell shot a short documentary of the sessions, The Making of Fudge: A Film, which shows a relaxed Kiwanuka playing guitar, walking in the woods, and recording his vocals while sitting on a couch. The film captures a close-knit group of musicians and singers, developing the music together in the same room, much of it improvised. Kiwanuka appears to find peace in a process that others might see as chaotic.
After the album wrapped, Michael completed some European dates and planned to release Fudge in the fall of 2025. But in July of that year, he cancelled several shows, including a festival in Ireland and a tour of North America. Fudge’s release date was also cancelled, and the only statement released was that Kiwanuka had a “continuing illness.” Only later was it announced that Kiwanuka had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke at age thirty-eight.
In October 2026, Fudge was released. A month prior, Michael did a phone interview with Jason Okundaye from The Guardian to talk about the album and his health. After his stroke, brought on by high blood pressure, he spent several months in intensive care and five more months in the hospital. When he did The Guardian interview, he was still receiving treatment at a rehabilitation center. “Things were going well before getting sick,” he said. “The gigs were going well, and the music was sounding good and seemed to be connecting with people, and that was a dream come true.” Michael explained that it was important for him to get the new album out. “It feels poignant to do it now after I got sick because I don’t know now how long it will be until I can release another record.”
Initial plans for Fudge took shape as Kiwanuka was putting the finishing touches on his last album Small Changes (2024). His debut Home Again (2012) had stripped down arrangements, and after he began working with Danger Mouse with his sophomore LP Love & Hate (2016), the production became more expansive. “One More Night” from Love & Hate got extensive streaming, as did “Cold Little Heart,” which was used in the opening credits for the HBO series Big Little Lies. His third LP, Kiwanuka (2019) won the Mercury Prize and went to #1 on the UK album chart. Kiwanuka described the arrangements for his third album as having “the kitchen sink” in a 2024 interview with Uncut magazine, and for Small Changes, there was an effort to trim back. Small Changes has a streamlined, atmospheric sound, and Fudge drives that concept even further. Still, as with all of Michael Kiwanuka’s albums, he brings a genre-blending mix of rock, soul, jazz, and blues to the music.
Kiwanuka found his mix of influences growing up in Muswell Hill, England. Born in 1987, he had an early attraction to music of the past when he was a child. “Anything from the ’70s, especially within black culture, really excited me because it was a time when people would try different things,” he told Uncut in 2022. “You couldn’t pigeonhole it. It was rock’n’roll and fun. People wore dresses and crazy hair and Afros. It was unhinged, and I wanted some of that, and it wasn’t really happening in the UK for young black boys.” He learned guitar, and by age twelve, his taste expanded to include Jimi Hendrix. At age fourteen, he added Miles Davis and jazz to his palette, and joined his first band. But it was after seeing Bill Withers on YouTube that all his influences jelled into his own personal style. “I was maybe eighteen and was like, ‘Damn, it’s black guys playing acoustic guitar with an Afro, like me!” he told Uncut in 2024. “At the time, my music friends were like, ‘Black people don’t really do that.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, they do!’” By age twenty-three, the solo Michael Kiwanuka had released a few singles on an independent imprint, which led to a major label signing with Polydor in 2010. Yet early on, the young artist was unsure if he could make his adventuresome mix of styles work with a large audience. “I guess in the beginning I didn’t know my potential,” he told Uncut. “I was kind of scared of the unknown because I would fall flat on my face.”
Whatever self-doubt Kiwanuka once felt is absent in Fudge. From the opening clip of jazz pianist Chick Corea explaining his viewpoint on creativity, Fudge’s overriding aspiration is to create great art without fear. As Kiwanuka explained in The Making of Fudge, “I realized making stuff or making albums, records or whatever, the type of art that it is you make, what I never even thought about and what has started to help me keep making music as I get older is trying to make something that represents the time that you’re in, in your life.” In keeping with his desire to strip back the sound, much of Fudge is light, breezy and melancholic. And like his debut Home Again, voice and acoustic guitar are at the core, allowing the keyboards, backing vocals, and strings to paint the broad strokes in the music. Songs like “California” have a tranquil, healing vibe, and “Sing” is a heartfelt lullaby. Both tracks take on greater meaning with Michael’s current illness. Fudge feels and sounds like Kiwanuka intended it to be—a work by an artist comfortable with what he is creating. “A stroke can take away a lot of things, but it can’t take these songs away,” he told The Guardian. “So I’ve got hope from that. Who I was still exists in these songs and in that music.”
With Kiwanuka still on the mend, it’s uncertain what’s next for him. As he told The Guardian, he’s keeping his spirits up with the music of his past. “Singing along to my favorite songs, that’s helped a lot,” he said. “Some Bob Dylan songs, because they are easier to sing because it’s more like talking. Some stuff off Pet Sounds, like ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.’ I love the lyrics on that album. Very melancholy, so it reflected how I felt in recovery.” Kiwanuka has another music project out in 2026, the soundtrack-like album Wilma by Daniele Luppi, where he is a featured singer on four tracks. His soulful vocals on Wilma are touching, and the record gives fans another wonderful recording to enjoy while they wait for new music or to see him perform live again. It could be sooner than people might expect. “I still have as much drive to create good music as I’ve ever done,” Kiwanuka said in September. Michael Kiwanuka may be in recovery, but it’s clear he’s itching to get back to pursuing beautiful sounds again.