’70S INSTRUMENTATION
Since his 2012 debut, Home Again, Kiwa-
nuka has had an acoustic guitar in hand,
but with the help of producer Danger
Mouse, on the new album he experiment-
ed with funky, psychedelic R&B. He often
gravitated toward a Prophet 5 synthesizer
made in the ’70s; it softens the somber
track “Solid Ground.” Kiwanuka sees it as
an alternative to a Wurlitzer: “It’s a sound
that loads of people have used, but it’s
new for me. It’s beautiful.”
After Kiwanuka released his second
album in 2016, its psychedelic track
“Cold Little Heart” soundtracked the
opening credits of HBO’s Big Little Lies,
becoming one of the most recognizable
songs on TV and expanding Kiwanuka’s
U.S. fan base. For his third album,
Kiwanuka (out Nov. 1 on Polydor Re-
cords), the London-based troubadour
turned inward, dusting off vintage in-
struments and embracing a newfound
appreciation for poetry.
—HILARY HUGHES
Michael
Kiwanuka
GEEKING OUT WITH...
CULTURAL REVOLUTIONARIES
“Hero” is Kiwanuka’s ode to activ-
ists, specifically the late Black Panther
chairman Fred Hampton and musician-
poet Gil Scott-Heron. Their words led to
Kiwanuka: “I’m a musician and a singer,
and a lyricist last — I find that the hardest
part,” says Kiwanuka. “They were really
confident in themselves; that helped me
with the record, a lot. A song like ‘You
Ain’t the Problem,’ I had never had a flow
like that before.”
SPOKEN WORD
Kiwanuka and Danger Mouse were round-
ing the bend on the album when they de-
cided to work in clips of historic speeches,
best heard on the thought-provoking track
“Another Human Being.” It’s a tactic used
on some of Kiwanuka’s favorite albums,
like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and
the Fugees’ The Score, which he listened
to as a teenager. “I was trying to keep
people listening, keep the mood through-
out the record,” he says of the interludes.
PHOTOGRAPHY
During the recording of the new album,
Kiwanuka snapped shots of the studio
sessions using his new Canon AE-1, an
SLR camera he bought at Adorama in
New York. “We always had a camera
in the studio,” he recalls. “I love classic
records and music from the ’70s, and
there’s so much good documentation of
the music and what was happening at
the time. I felt like I didn’t have any of
that [before].”
From left: Bassett as Ricky, Rodrigo as Nini,
Matt Cornett as E.J. and Sofia Wylie as Gina.
INSIDE LOOK
HIGH SCHOOL
GRADUATES
For three consecutive years,
Disney’s High School Musical
franchise was a juggernaut; the
movie-musical trilogy produced a trio
of soundtracks between 2006 and 2008
that have sold a combined 9.8 million
copies, according to Nielsen Music.
Now, Disney is hoping to reintroduce
one of its most lucrative tentpoles with
High School Musical: The Musical: The
Series — one of six original shows
premiering on the company’s new
streaming service, Disney+, which will
launch Nov. 12 and offer new and
classic Disney programming. (Unlike
Netflix’s binge-watch model, new
episodes will be released weekly.)
The show’s plot is quite meta: A group
of students from Salt Lake City’s East
High School (where the film trilogy took
place) are staging a production of High
School Musical. The show’s creator,
Tim Federle, insists the series isn’t a
continuation of HSM, but a modern
take. The biggest difference fans will
notice is that the show is not a typi-
cal musical — none of the characters
spontaneously break into song. Instead,
the show incorporates music organi-
cally, during a scene at a karaoke club
or through an Instagram video. “You can
become famous on TikTok now,” says
Federle. “Young viewers know when
they’re being fed something that’s not
real, because they’re putting so much
reality out there themselves.”
That’s exactly why Federle hired actors
who are also singer-songwriters, like
leads Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett,
who co-wrote one of the series’ original
songs. Favorites from the first film, like
“Breaking Free” and “Start of Something
New,” were revamped for the show too.
Even though music supervisor Steve
Vincent, who also worked on the movies,
says that guitar- and piano-driven pop-
rock productions aren’t dominating pop
radio right now, he’s confident they will
stream well because of one key advan-
tage: These songs are “comfort food. The
content battle across show business is
huge — but being able to wave a familiar
flag can catch people’s eyes.”
—TAYLOR WEATHERBY
36 BILLBOARD • OCTOBER 19, 2019
KIWANUKA:BURAKCINGI/REDFERNS/GETTY^IMAGES.^ M
USICAL:^ DISNEY+/CRAIGSJODIN.