In 1999 Somali spoken word artist/rapper K’naan performed a poem at the United Nations criticizing the organization for their failed support during the Somali conflict. His piece was met with critical reaction, and K’naan decided to pursue a career in music. In 2005 he released his debut record The Dusty Foot Philosopher (BMG Music) and last week, his latest effort, Troubadour (A&M/OctoScope Music).
GIANT caught up with the Somali MC to discuss his take on America’s hoods, life in Somalia and his evolution as an artist.
GIANT: In your song “If Rap Gets Jealous“, you were calling American rappers out. What constitutes a real gangster to you and have you been to the “hoods” of America?
K’naan: I lived in a lot of them. I lived in southeast [Washington] D.C. when it was considered the capitol of murder, and the hoods of Minnesota and Ohio. And I live in New York, in Harlem.
You were well versed in it.
Yeah. And Toronto. It’s not taking away anything from how that struggle is. You know that struggle and it’s relevant.
Talk a bit about your time in Mogadishu, Somalia and what your experience was. How old were you when you came to America?
I was 13 or 14.
So you came at the cusp of your adolescence, how did that influence you?
My time there was two distinct worlds. One was before the age of 11. It was just beautiful. We really lived in this majestic ideal of a world, and it was a world that was around me but I knew it was created around me. I was around poets. My grandfather was a poet. My aunties, all of these artists. I lived in this period, and when I turned 11, there things that were happening around us and to us that began to affect us to my conscious of how we lived in Somalia. What I thought of the country. like we’d hear about friends who got killed, who got shot. There was a moment when I thought I found a grenade. This is a well documented story, I don’t know if you ever heard of it. I found a grenade and some friends and I were playing with it and we accidently pulled the pin out. We didn’t get killed, but the screw blew up. The thing about close proximity to grenades as it blows over you. Things like were happening at 11, and then the war came when I was 13. It was an influential time in my life.
How did you doing spoken word at the U.N. turn into you doing hip-hop?
It just kind of makes sense for a certain type of emotion – aggression and a certain kind of discontent. Also not wanting to resort to an emotional collapse. If you sing, certain emotions can collapse you but if you can rap you’re still very much in defiance. You haven’t succumb to your emotions. That’s why.
Is there a hip-hop scene in Somalia?
I’m the first and now there are people coming up. Not in Somalia – abroad, out here. Somalians are starting to look at it as an expression, but in Somalia they’re very strict about art. So they don’t really. They’re like, “Rap. That’s really joke music.”
In other cultures, they have healthy hip-hop scenes.
They have it in Kenya, South Africa. They have it all around Africa except for Somalia. Somalia is… “We do serious stuff.” That’s the kind of vision they have.
How do you incorporate Somali music and sounds?
In Somalia, even the older ones don’t really think of my music as rap. For some reason they completely deny it. They’re like, “We hate rap, but this is different.” They’ll put me in another. There’s also some guys trying come up doing rap, but they don’t like them. “Cause it’s how you say what you say to Somalians that matter the most. Your level of articulation. If it isn’t incredible, they’re not messing with you at all.
What was the evolution from The Dusty Foot Philosopher to Troubadour?
I don’t like to repeat myself musically. Dusty Philosopher had a lot of critical success even though it didn’t sell a lot of copies. A lot of people were like this is the thing. It would have been easy to repeat that but that’s dishonest to do that. It’s also been four years since that’s been released let alone recorded. It was recorded years before it’s release. All these years of travel and growth, a lot of massive changes in my life, musically there has to have been some change and shifts and reflection. Of course there’s real strong sounds in this album as well. In “People like Me” there’s some heavy subject matter in this album, but I also love optimism. I feel like “Dreamer” was a good moment because naivety wins. It’s a beautiful moment for naivety because we become so cynical we’ve confused for intelligence. If you’re not cynical, you’re not that smart. I like the opposite of that.
Now that you’re reaching a mainstream market, how do you think your audience is going to respond to your other worldliness? How do you think the western audience is going to take your being Muslim?
I’m on MTV with songs like… It’s a different kind of MTV. I’m carving a different kind of MTV. They came to this. I didn’t go to them. If I did, it would have been a completely different guy on TV. The thing is that I think my audience will come along. Fans have been like, “We can’t wait for you to win.” They’ve always been emotionally invested, and like, “This should be heard.” I’m starting to be heard and I thinks that like a celebratory thing for them.
- Nazneen Patel
K’naan’s sophomore album Troubadour is available now at music retailers and iTunes.
