Michael Kiwanuka – ‘Fudge’ review: a powerful portrait of a man on the precipice of tragedy

The muted, rumbling rhythm sections; the warm guitar tones and grounding basslines; the strings that cut like a Japanese knife through the soft soulfulness; and the rich, humble voice that brings it all together: at its core, Michael Kiwanuka‘s new record ‘Fudge’ traces a continuous path from his last album, 2024’s critically acclaimed ‘Small Changes’. But the world the Mercury Prize-winning singer-songwriter is living in couldn’t be more different. READ MORE: Michael Kiwanuka – ‘Small Changes’ review: a homely, life-affirming listen “I want to tell people why I haven’t been around. Everyone can relate to pain and struggle. That’s one thing all humans have in common. So I’m just sharing mine with the world,” Kiwanuka reflected in a recent Guardian interview outlining the devastating explanation for last summer’s cancelled live shows, and the silence that followed. Last July, the then-38-year-old suffered a haemorrhagic stroke caused by undiagnosed high blood pressure; he underwent emergency surgery, months of intensive care and many more months in rehabilitation at a medical centre in Hampshire, where he remains today. This album was recorded before all that, self-produced in a stu...