I had the pleasure to meet Lord Spikeheart this year, a highlight for sure. A true original artist who you've got to see live to fully appreciate. He leaves it all out there, genuinely connecting with his audience. I photographed Martin at The No Bounds Festival in Sheffield and again at the ICA in London.
As Ammar Kalia described him in his Guardian piece "Over the past decade vocalist Martin Kanja, AKA Lord Spikeheart, has become a figurehead of the burgeoning Kenyan metal scene: first with frenetic speedcore group Lust of a Dying Breed, then to international acclaim as part of industrial duo Duma, cultivating a distinctive blend of guttural yawps, screeching screams and gravelly rap verses that seep menacingly through headbanging instrumentals".
Martins latest Album 'The Adept' ranked in The Guardian's 2024 top 10 Global Albums. I photographed Martin with Album in hand outside Buckingham Palace. THE ADEPT album cover (back side). A burning pile of colonial-era documents that were uncovered in a stock in the Nyeri County Archives by archivists of the Nyeri Museum. Photo by Max Pinckers/Michiel Burger 2015 in State of Emergency, Harakati za Mau Mau Kwa Haki, Usawa na Ardhi Yetu.
