MUSIC

The Traveler Has Come

Somalian hip-hop and the wrath of K'Naan.


	print	email	reply

Published: Feb 26, 2009

hip-hop

K'Naan's rap? He left his birthplace in Mogadishu, Somalia at 13 not just to pick up a career in hip-hop influenced by the old school albums his pop sent K'Naan from America.

He and his family left their homeland for Harlem USA and Ontario Canada so they wouldn't die.

His travels from there to here, the horrors, melancholy moods and the merriment he witnessed make up two sensitively powerful subtly told recordings: The Dusty Foot Philosopher (2005) and his brand new Troubadour.

"My job is to write just what I see/So a visual stenographer is who I be," says K'Naan in a proud raspy rap during "I Come Prepared" in regards to clicking off images in his mind's eye. This sounds as if he's more of a journalist than a rap rhetorician or a hip-pop-political speech-giver.

What gives?

"Music is all just visual to me," says K'Naan. "Its lyrics and words are power. And when combined with the right melody, they have infinite potential. I am an artist not a journalist or a politician."

Then again, according to K'Naan (whose named means "traveler") in Somalia, art and political discourse are not separate. Where he comes from, they are simply one in the same. "As I moved to North America I was exposed to other authors and political figures such as Ngugi Thiongo, Malcom X and others. But the roots and foundation (of my thinking) come from home and family. My grandfather, mom, aunts and uncles — I come from a rich lineage of poets and musicians. Somalia is known as the country of poets and warriors."

When he left his home, he didn't necessarily think he was leaving for good. Running away from Somalia only seemed like something he'd run back to. "But as we got further away and began to settle into our new life I knew it would be sometime before I could return. I could not have anticipated 17 years of no central government or my role as a musician and how that would both endear me and in some ways keep me away from my old home."

While Dusty Foot Philosopher is specific in its pictures of war and chance from his homeland, Troubadour comes from a more global view of a griot at play throughout the new world with friends like Mos Def and collaborators Chubb Rock, Kirk Hammett (Metallica) and Damian Marley. Troubadour benefited on the rasta-man vibration tip by being recorded at Marley's studio and that of his dad's, Tuff Gong. "You're not reading too much into it wondering if there was some sort of spirit at work there."

While "15 Minutes Away" captures a planet living day to day, hand to mouth ("money and help is 15 minutes away once the Western Union ordered is processed" notes K'Naan) the African folk mien of "Fire in Freetown" and the catty soul of "If Rap Gets Jealous," is hip-hop at its worldliest.

But it's "America" — done with Mos Def and Chali 2na — that made me think about how we bitch about petty problems when K'Naan had to run from far harder devastation. "The media seems to hold onto (the bitching) more than the public," says K'Naan. "I'm fortunate to speak for those who are still affected by those type of circumstances be it in Somalia or other similar situations around the world. I hope that Troubadour's songs are less about me and more about the world and our personal responsibilities to self and to others."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

K'Naan plays Mon., March 2, 8 p.m., $13, World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com.