The King (Anjimile album)
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| The King | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | September 8, 2023 | |||
| Length | 33:15 | |||
| Label | 4AD | |||
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| Anjimile chronology | ||||
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| Singles from The King | ||||
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The King is the second studio album by American folk musician Anjimile Chithambo, better known as Anjimile. It was released on September 8, 2023, through 4AD. Chithambo wrote and co-produced all the songs, with additional production credits from Justine Bowe and Shawn Everett. It features contributions from Justine Bowe, Brad Allen Williams, Sam Gendel, and James Krivchenia.[1]
Chithambo wrote, arranged, recorded, and produced the record in the span of three years. The musician described it as "a very intense record" that contains a lot of "anger and hopelessness and fear". In writing songs for the album, he was able to process and release "those challenging feelings", in hopes that listeners would experience it themselves. Spurred by the 2020 murder of George Floyd, Chithambo tried to find an outlet to release a pent up "well of anger roil inside", giving himself space to process the "myriad struggles they've faced as a Black nonbinary trans person".[2]
Chithambo announced the album on May 23, 2023, alongside the release of the eponymous lead single. A "dramatic, unsettling, yet grand track", the song arrived with an animated lyric video by Daniela Yohannes, who also designed the album artwork.[3] The musician explained in a statement that if his debut was "an album of prayers", then The King poses the antithesis as an album of "curses". Thematically, it explores the state of being a "black, trans person in America".[4]
