Land of K'Naan

The philosophizing Somali-born Toronto artist is poised to release a much-hyped second album, but success, for him, lies close to home

Never mind the CNN spot, Los Angeles Times nod, Esquire plug and all the other high-profile buzz around K'Naan's forthcoming sophomore disc. As far as the Toronto rapper is concerned, Troubadour is already a smash.

"It's how my mother feels – that's the trajectory of success, that is how I decide; and she's been moved by the album," says the 30-year-old performer of the 14 tracks comprising urgent, universal songs about love, hope and struggle in a mélange of traditional African rhythms, hip hop, rock, reggae and pop.

"And my second measure of success is how my own people feel about the music I make about them," says Somali-born Keinan Warsame, who settled here with his family in the early '90s after fleeing civil war at home

"If they feel like the music is about them and not for them, it's not successful to me; but if it's about and for them, as well as for everyone else, then I'm satisfied."

While "America" features entire verses in his native tongue, "Somalia" recounts Mogadishu's mean streets, and references to uniquely African immigrant experiences are sprinkled throughout the album,

K'Naan knows some members of his ethnic community won't be able to get past the hip-hop overtones in his work.

"The older people who understand my music, who understand English, they don't think I'm a rapper, they think I'm a poet." And for that, says the grandson of famed Somali poet Haji Mohamed says, "they really honour it."

But the elders generally "don't like hip hop; they don't think the kids should be listening to it. They see it as vulgar joke music that is demeaning and degrading to women, and that's not in our culture. A guy from Somalia calling a girl a ho is unheard of. We don't demean our women that way."

This brings to an interesting juncture our conversation over tea at a downtown Toronto hotel during K'naan's hectic days of promotion prior to the launch of his first North American headlining tour, which lands at the Mod Club on album release day, Feb. 24.

Earlier in our chat, in his unhurried, philosophical way, the MC defended his use of the N-word in his rhymes, which, with no equivalent term in Somali, doesn't seem like a natural undertaking.

"I grew up partly in Somalia's vicious streets and partly in North American streets," he said. "I never lived in the circles of the goody-goodies. I was a high-school dropout, hung out with thugs.

"I learned the endearment of `n----r.' It would be nice and all positive of us to say, `Well, let's not do it in music,' but we say it in our households. Until we agree to stop that ..."

I wonder now, albeit gratefully, why he cherry-picked this word, and not that other term, from the urban landscape. "I think it's different in the sense that there is no way to make `ho' nice," he replies with a laugh. "Even if Lil' Kim can sound good saying it, `ho' is still a problem.

"`N----r' is a problem in the sense that it was connected to social class and such, but it's not a personal ... degrading of a woman – that's intense to me, and I'm from powerful women."

How does the married father manage such terminology with his two toddler sons? "My kids are interesting in the way that they're being raised, because I don't give them the panic factor of language. My (3 1/2-year-old) son will say `Oh, s--t!' instinctively sometimes. And I'll say, `You know, it's cool between you and me, but when there's the neighbours and stuff, they don't like hearing that.'

"So that he doesn't find the value of it to be more beautiful than it is," the father explains. "When we hide something and make it secretive, we make it beautiful to kids. I give them the freedom of language."

Meanwhile he's demanding his own artistic freedom, brandishing a genre-hopping sound in an industry that likes to pigeonhole. "The truth is that I'm an ambitious person and I feel like when we say `The game is not ready,' or `Are people ready for a fresh sound?' or `Can they take you without a genre?' – I feel they must.

"If you don't drive people forward as an artist, what will? We're not plumbers. We're supposed to be innovators. We're supposed to be inspiring. We can't just say, `Oh, that's what they're listening to. I'm going to do that too.'"

Troubadour's eclectic creative village included Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, rappers Mos Def and Chubb Rock, reggae toaster Damian Marley and an L.A. children's choir.

K'Naan spent four months in Jamaica's capital, recording at the Bob Marley family's studios, with access to the late reggae king's old engineers and the B3 Hammond organ he used on Exodus. He'd bonded with Marley's sons Stephen and Damian when he went on the road with them last year.

"I had my own bus on the tour," he says, "but Stephen insisted that I go on their bus, because he wanted us three to be together. One day Stephen woke up and came to me in the lounge area and said, `I just had a dream and Bob visited me in the dream and said that he was proud of us, because of the work we're doing together.' And that was powerful.

"Someone once made the mistake of calling me an opening act around Stephen – and he said, in a more vulgar way, `What are you talking about? K'Naan's show is sunrise and we're sunset.'"

It's surprising, then, that noted studio genie Stephen doesn't rate any production credits on Troubadour. "We did some songs together, they didn't make the album. Stephen in a sense was kind of a spiritual producer of this album, because he was there and he gave me the space to create, not only the house and the studio of Bob, but the things I needed.

"If we ran in trouble ... if the label was like `We're not paying for that, because you're doing crazy stuff now, you're bringing weird musicians into the thing,' I'd call Steve and he would pay for it."

K'Naan's sense of humour comes across on the disc, particularly in "15 Minutes Away," about relying on money transfers from friends during hard times on the road.

For a reporter's benefit, he recalls a rock-bottom moment in New York with band member Rayzak. "I'd just recorded stuff on (the ultimately Juno-winning 2006 album) The Dusty Foot Philosopher. I had no record deal, nothing. And we went to New York, because I have some musician friends who play for major artists and who were like `You gotta come through, they gotta hear your music.'

"But they don't understand that it takes a lot for us to come through – (the cost of the) hotel most of all. So we got this motel off somewhere and we were like 'Oh my God, this place sucks, but this will do, because tomorrow we'll get up and we'll get together with these legendary musicians.'

"We decide to use the iron to iron our jacked-up clothes. Why did the clothes start to smell really bad? There's something wrong with this, we can't wear this anymore. What are we going to do? Ray opens the iron and for water someone had pissed in it. It was horrible."

So, inquiring minds want to know, where does major label guy stay when he's in the Big Apple now?

"Usually at The Bowery Hotel, which is like a great boutique hotel," he says bashfully of the establishment, which boasts marble bathrooms and 400-thread-count linens.

"It's beautiful. It's a hell of another world from where I was."

Source: Toronto Star