Michael Kiwanuka - "I'm Getting Ready" - The Crypt Sessions: Season 2, Episode 10

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With Michael Kiwanuka, it's all about the voice. A voice that he describes as "hitting straight through to the core" with direct, emotional songs about love, yearning, comfort and belonging. It's a voice that built him a following via MySpace and small London gigs, and led Paul Butler from The Bees to invite him to the band's Isle of Wight studio to lay down these introductory tracks. Which makes it all the more strange, really, that what Kiwanuka originally set out to be was a session guitarist who maybe wrote the odd song for other people.

Now 23, growing up in North London Michael struggled at times to see where he fitted in. An avid England and Spurs fan, he found it hard to imagine a day when a name like Kiwanuka could sit comfortably on the back of a football shirt here. Nonetheless, when his parents took him and his brother back to the Uganda to visit family, he and his brother were immediately recognised as English tourists. Like most of his schoolmates, he liked bands like Nirvana and Blur, but it was only when he discovered that Jimi Hendrix was black that he was able to imagine himself picking up a guitar.

In his teens, two other icons helped him find his voice. A friend gave him a Bob Dylan box set, and Michael was bowled over by the power of a well-crafted song, delivered with just urgent vocals and an acoustic guitar. Later, he was playing the free CD that came with a music magazine and heard an out-take of 'Sitting on the Dock of the Bay' in which Otis Redding was talking to the studio engineer. It made the soul icon seem more human, more accessible, and though there were later to be other influences from Bill Withers and Terry Callier to John Martyn and Laura Marling, it was Dylan and Redding who laid the foundations for Michael's own rootsy, folk-inflected modern soul.

• Category

  Music

[AmikaLDN]

i'm proud to say Fearne Cotton did not bring me here

[EdRobinsonMusic]

LOVE THIS! I know I'm just a nobody but I love this song and have done a cover. Would really mean a lot to me if it could get some serious views, it you could spend a few minutes watching i would really appreciate it :)

[thomas tangoroy]

Masa Rider strong recommended

[Distudio7]

Thank you for this beautiful song, it should humble all of us.

[william farmer]

gotcha bro

[Rónán Kearney]

SWEET

[fgnai]

yeeessss!!!!

[shushumnalucy]

Absolutely beautiful! Thank you Michael :)

[terriblillo]

precioso

[Sera Lubowa]

Perfect!

[Kay Eazy]

Really?

[cristian barros]

este tema me rompe el corazón, es un tema hermoso!!