Michael Kiwanuka has shared a new track, ‘Beautiful Life’.
The song – his first new music since 2019’s Mercury Prize-winning album ‘Kiwanuka’ – serves as the title track on a new Netflix documentary Convergence: Courage in a Crisis.
With time on his hands during the start of the pandemic, Kiwanuka started writing and demoing tracks for a fourth album. During that period, Oscar-winning director Orlando von Einsiedel reached out to see if he would be interested in contributing to the documentary.
“In this song I wanted to focus on the feeling that there’s a real strength in the human spirit when you try to look for beauty even in difficult situations,” he explains. “Of course, in some situations that becomes more and more difficult. But I just wanted to ponder on that and wonder what life would be like if I lived it like that.
“Ultimately whatever people feel from hearing the song is ok with me. But what I was trying to emit through the music was a feeling of defiance. A feeling of strength through adversity.”
Still at work on his next full-length, Kiwanuka will hit the road next spring, with a UK tour that calls off at both London’s Brixton Academy and Alexandra Palace. You can check out new trck ‘Beautiful Life’ below.
