Artist · chart history
Michael Kiwanuka
Solo artist Muswell Hill United Kingdom
Michael Kiwanuka is an artist from Muswell Hill. Michael Kiwanuka has 118 chart appearances on 73 radio countdowns from 20 stations on RockLists, spanning 2012–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Cold Little Heart”, which appears on 21 lists with a best position of #2. The station that charted Michael Kiwanuka most often is WXPN (Philadelphia, PA), with 15 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2016.
Michael Kiwanuka came out of Muswell Hill with a voice that sounds decades older than he is and a record collection split between soul, folk and rhythm and blues. Born in 1987, he cut his teeth on a pair of EPs in 2011, Tell Me a Tale and I'm Getting Ready, then won the BBC's Sound of... poll in 2012, the same year his debut album, Home Again, arrived. It was a warm, unhurried record that wore its roots proudly, and it went gold in the UK.
Love & Hate, in 2016, was the leap. It debuted at the top of the charts and turned the gentle troubadour into something bigger and darker, with songs like "Cold Little Heart", "Black Man in a White World" and the title track swelling into brooding, widescreen slow-burns that take their sweet time and earn every minute. He plays guitar, piano, Rhodes and bass, and on this record every instrument seems to be pulling toward the same heavy, aching center.
KIWANUKA followed in 2019 with "Hero" and "Rolling", and in 2020 he took home the Mercury Prize. Small Changes landed in November 2024, carrying "Floating Parade" and "The Rest of Me". Along the way he has racked up nominations at the Brits, the MTV Europe Music Awards and the Grammys, and he makes his records for Polydor.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Michael Kiwanuka on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cold Little Heart | 21 | #2 | – | 2017 | |
| 2 | Love and Hate | 15 | #3 | – | 2017 | |
| 3 | Hero | 14 | #11 | – | 2019 | |
| 4 | Floating Parade | 15 | #5 | – | 2024 | |
| 5 | Tell Me A Tale | 10 | #4 | – | 2012 | |
| 6 | One More Night | 11 | #26 | – | 2016 | |
| 7 | You Ain't The Problem | 6 | #3 | – | 2019 | |
| 8 | Rolling | 7 | #8 | – | 2020 | |
| 9 | I'm Getting Ready | 6 | #14 | – | 2012 | |
| 10 | Black Man in a White World | 4 | #48 | – | 2016 | |
| 11 | Home Again | 4 | #7 | – | 2012 | |
| 12 | The Rest of Me | 3 | #65 | – | 2025 | |
| 13 | Money | 1 | #17 | – | 2019 | |
| 14 | Beautiful Life | 1 | #51 | – | 2021 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Featured on
Songs by other artists credited with Michael Kiwanuka as a guest.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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