The New Sound of K’naan

His name means traveler. In his first album, K’Naan called himself the dusty foot philosopher. He said the dusty foot philosopher is someone that has never been in a plane but can tell you what’s beyond the clouds. Though in his recent album titled, “Troubadour, he no longer calls himself that, he still speaks as if he is preaching.

Hip-hop is a broad category. It includes music, culture, and style. If I had to label K’Naan’s style it probably be alternative hip-hop. That is, music that refuses to fall into the stereotypes of gansta, hardcore, or party rap. Now rap and hip-hop are not the same thing. Rap is a style of hip-hop, hip-hop is a style of music, they are not interchangeable.

K’Naan is a Somali-Canadian. He was born in northern Somalia but grew up in Mogadishu, the capital city. When the civil war broke out in 1991 many intellectuals had left the country to places like London and New York City. K’Naan’s father left for New York and became a cab driver. K’Naan’s mother petitioned the United States for a visa and it was approved on the last day the US embassy remained open in Somalia. The family lived with relatives in Harlem until moving to Toronto, Ontario. He left school at grade ten to travel and sing. He still lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons. Though in his thirties he looks so young, a poster child for people who grow up in hard times.

People tell me he is similar to this artist or that artist. I have not found one other artist like him. Yes there are similarities between him and artists like k-os and Michael Franti. But K’naan is unique. He himself said “I got my own sound. I don’t sound like the rest, and even my attire and my choice of dress”. I first heard K’Naan on NPR. I make sure to listen to anything and anyone that has something to say about Somalia. There are so few good things that come out of Somalia these days that K’Naan was an inspiration. I had never liked or listen to rap or hip-hop. I felt that to listen to the music and to enjoy it was to conform to traditional black stereotypes. K’Naan proved to me that hip-hop has something to say and should not be neglected. What can only called as in the true spirit of hip-hop, K’Naan collaborates with a number of artist including Chubb Rock, Damian Marley, Nelly Furtado, and Mos Def.

K’Naan speaks to an audience that has experienced injustice, hardships, and personal struggles. As he says in T.I.A (This is Africa) “I take rappers on a field trip any day, they’ve never been opposite real clip anyway. I know where all the looters and the shooters stay. Welcome to the city we call Doomsday”. News flash to American raps who think they have it hard, Africans have it harder. K’Naan tries to tell the world about Somalia and the conflict that has stagnated the nation. I don’t know if people are listening. As he says himself “they love me in the slums and the native reservations”. These places are where people that are marginalized and misunderstood are found. It some sense I fear that he is preaching to the choir. But in defense I must say that K’Naan’s songs are a sort of protest. Music is more than a few notes on the guitar. Music is a language. And K’Naan speaks the language not only as a hip-hop artist but also a poet. His lyrics are not simple and stark but often melancholy and disturbing, at the same time being true. When K’Naan sings about all the things wrong in the world he sings it from the perspective of hope and pride. Its constructive criticism.

The so called “World Music” genre is an arbitrary category as it is. It is as dynamic and diverse as what can be considered “African Music”. K’Naan has proved this by combining styles of funk, rap, and traditional music. With the ever popular sound of the drum, and the soul of Somalia, the language of the poets, K’Naan has created his own unique sound. African musicians are breaking out of their mold. Just as K’Naan experiments with American rap lines, other African musicians are extending their influence beyond the artificially created expectation of what African music really is. The first major introduction of African music to the United States was through Paul Simon’s Graceland album in which he collaborated with many artists including the now famous Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The few problems I have with K’Naan’s is his use of language, the use of the word nigger (or nigga) and sometimes you can’t understand what he is saying. In other words not much. He does use bad language but it is used appropriately. Many people disrespect these words and overuse them with out meaning them. When K’Naan swears he does in a way that emphasize his position and tells that he is angry and frustrated. His slight accent it is readily understood to most even though English is not his first language. And in Somali the sound ‘p’ does not exist so it often comes out sounding like a ‘b’. On the use of the word nigger, I can not understand why anyone would use this word black, white, or otherwise.

The Dalai Lama once said “Never give up, develop the heart, too much energy in your country is spent developing the mind instead of the heart”. In the most poetic sense I believe that is what K’Naan does. His music is not just entertainment. Its a discussion between philosophers, you and him. An artist should speak to you. And if they possess the gift of tongue and heart it will seem as if they are speaking only to you. K’Naan proclaims that he does not speak of Africa in general but of Somalia specifically because he was born into it. Though we share different experiences from similar circumstances, I feel that K’Naan speaks of Somalia the way I have thought of it. That though we are not proud of what is happening there, we are still proud to be Somali. It may seem like a simple idea but it is very important these days after hear so much negative news from Somalia of warlords with AKs and pirates with RPGs.

While I try to approach this analysis objectively, I am ware that I am biased. I am not a critic, I am a fan. And as such I realize that there may be things about K’Naan I don’t like, now and in the future, but K’Naan is only a man. He is obligated to live his life anyway he sees fit. His music might be a misleading representation of his character but his messages hold universal truth. They can not be denied. For example Bob Dylan’s famous song “The Times They are a Changin” influence on that

generation can not be denied. Even if he says himself that he sang and wrote these songs purely because no one else was. What K’Naan says is revealing of the situations of refugees and other displaced people. To make his case he speaks from experience. That experience and his words of expression of that journey can not be denied.

K’Naan maybe my favorite artist but I recognize his faults. The first time I heard K’Naan live was in December at Higher Ground. The same day I had a math exam at the time the performance was suppose to begin. However K’Naan was the last of the opening acts. The main performance was by some guy with the stage name Matisyahu. Apparently he was a Jewish musician who blends styles of traditional music with hip-hop, rock and roll, and reggae. But I came to see K’Naan. I arrived an hour and half past the scheduled time. But K’Naan was just getting on stage. I have listened to his his songs a hundred times (probably more) but I never expected what came about in that room. The sound and energy of his live performance was far beyond expectation. After his session my mother and I waited by his bus to get his autograph. After an hour and a half in the freezing December wind, my mother left. All this time I was clenching his first album “The Dusty Foot Philosopher”. Even though his band mates kept saying ‘he’ll be right out, he’ll be right out’, he never came. I held out for another hour. Though I kept thinking “How many fans could he possible have in Vermont? Wouldn’t he be glad of just two?”. I don’t really blame him. I am disappointed I didn’t get to meet K’Naan. But I don’t consider him an idol to looked at as an example or to be criticized at every step he makes. I think of him as a man who has something to say and he says it with his voice. I do not know the man. I am a fan of his music because that is what I know. His thoughts and words about Somalia speak to me.

In 2006 I got his first album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher. In June of that year I went to visit my uncle, who had travelled from Somalia to meet me. Much of our time was spent travelling around in the same taxi cab. And as the radio signals went in and out of tune you would hear spontaneous outburst of 50 Cent and to my surprise K’Naan. It surprised me to hear the same thing half way around the world. But at the same time I was touched to see that music has no borders.

I Wish I Knew My Name

The Sandalwood Project: Chapter 1

Possible Manipulation (2)

We question where we are going without knowing where we are. How is that possible? How is that sensible. If the truth could speak it would say that it is not sensible, it is not wise, and it will lead to catastrophes. Judging only by relativity is like running interference; you don’t realize you been fooled until its too late.

The strangest thing about life that we spend so much money and time preserving out past even though we are often afraid to look at the story it tells. A wise man once said “our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure”. How strange it is to fear once self.

Isn’t strange that we spend much less time and money on our future? Most people would say it is but of course they would be wrong. We can protect our past by throwing money at it but we can not protect our future in the same way, because the future is a idea; a masterpiece of our imagination. An ideology is far more powerful than we can imagine. Our beliefs and dreams are the fuels of our soul. And on faith value we will never surrender to any foreign interference.

But I probably boring you right now so lets get to the story. If you can imagine long narrow roads that wined and bend through continuous valleys. If you imagine rolling hills and snow covered mountains. If you can imagine covered bridges and slow moving streams. Then you have surely left what ever state your in and entered the state of Vermont. The former state of Vermont. But I will explain this later. On this particular day of August 13th 2015, if you were a bird and with such eyes could see the world. You might find a young man riding a dirt bike on South West Highway, formally Route 116.

South West Highway is a beautifully road. Well the road is not that beautiful actually cause its falling apart and one really needs a range rover to maneuver safely on it. But the landscape was beautiful.  There no funds in the state transportation budget for such mediocre task as mowing the side of the highways or even for land owners to mow their large un-farmed fields.  The land had been given the mandate to run wild. And in this particular place in the world  one war had ended at lest for now. Nature had won. Now this man was enjoying the beauty of the land, not paying much attention to the road when he ran into a cow. Yes a cow. Or I should say a herd of cows. If the Subaru is the state un-official car then the Holstein is more or less (probably more) the official animal of the state.

The results? Well the bike is okay. The cow has a minor concussion which brought a slight case of hallucinations and will probably be emotionally scarred for life. The kid on the other hand seems to have retro grade amnesia, a really bad stomach due to swallowing a lot of dirt, and a strange suspicion that his bike tried to kill him. And I bet all of you thought cows were dumb and sheepish (you know what I mean). On the contrary they have big brains, their probably just contemplating the exist of the universe while standing motionless for hours in the fields. I pretty sure they have proven that Einstein was right about theory of relativity and have gone on to more challenging questions such as why humans deliberately start fires in their homes.

“Oh, your awake” said the nurse “I’ll call the doctor”.

“Who are you”

“I am Wanda, your nurse”

“Ah, I see. And who am I”

“Your…” She looked at here clipboard “You know I’m not sure”.

Anybody that has ever been in an accident or had surgery will tell you that the actual procedure wasn’t that bad. The recovery however is atrocious. When the nurse wrote for the doctor that the patient didn’t know who he was, he misunderstood. The doctor introduced himself. And while our young protagonist generally walks with an awkward swagger, now he was tumbling and bumbling along the dusty streets. The doctor said that since he wasn’t dieing there wasn’t really any need for him to stay. After leaving Sixo General Hospital on the outskirts of town, he went to the retrieve his mode of transportation. It took him hours to find the right bus. South District Transport Terminal was so confusing. Trucks, buses, trains, streetcars, and taxis, every mode of transportation need to get around. He didn’t know it but he had rode that exact same bus the day before. Take bus number 29 north to Burlington City, get off at the main station and find a streetcar named Destiny. Finally 3 hours later the young man arrived at Metro Police Central Command (MPCC).

“May I help you” said the young tall police woman at the entrance.

“Yes. I am here to pick up my dirt bike”

“What is you name?”

“I don’t know”

“There is no such name on the list”

“No I don’t know my name. I apparently had a accident with my bike. I ran into a cow.”

“Apparently?”

“Ya I can’t remember”

“I’m sorry sir, but we can’t confirm any of this. I’m sorry we can’t help you”

What a predicament. The young man sulked out of the Metro office. Out in across the street from the station was a red dirt bike that had the letter O.M.I.N. “Omin, I know that name” said Muktub. But he could think of it and just gave up. He was surprised to find $400 dollars in his wallet and decided to spend it on a room for the night on the lower west side of Burlington City, just a few miles from the Police Command. Other things in his wallet was a post it note that said ‘14 Dublin Street’, a ticket from Higher Ground to the Dusty Foot Philosopher, and a Band-Aid. No ID. He had no idea why he was riding around without an ID but he thought that he was more than capable of such carelessness. “I wish I knew my name” he said. He went to put his wallet back in his pocket at which point a blue card with the symbol of sun and moon drops out. Once he picks it up he reads “9 Narrow Street Employment Center”. On the top corner in red ink its “for Asmodeus”. I like that the young man thought. Asmodeus sounds familiar, yes sounds good enough for me.

Asmodeus spent the night at the West City Motel. It was decent, clean, and comfortable all for only 45 dollars. There was a little bistro around the corner of the West City Motel. In the morning, once hearing about this place Asmodeus thought he would try it out. He ordered a standard breakfast meal. A muffin, bacon & eggs; scrambled, and a cup of coffee. The muffin and bacon was fine. He didn’t like the eggs. The coffee just need sugar. With the meal came the local newspaper; Burlington City Time Argus.

Scientific Socialism: Somali Posters

Obviously “scientific” socialism was a utter failure like the Great Leap Forward in China. With the civil war in Somalia history significant artifact were in danger. Nobody wants what happened to the Iraqi museums to happen to their nations history pieces. Here are some posters send to the Indiana University between 1979-1981 by the Somali Studies International Association.

In Search of My Country

There once was an average man. He was born in the desert. He lived in the desert. All his friends and family would say that he was easily irritable. But this is not his story. He married a beautiful woman and they inherited a farm. But this is not her story. They had four kids. The second child was the only boy. He was rash and got into a lot of trouble. This is his story.

There is an old Somali proverb that goes like this: Me and my clan against the world, me and my brother against the clan, me against my brother. If I were to tell the story of Somalia it would go like this: First we fought against the Arabs. Then we thought we where Arab. Then we fought against each other. We pretended we weren’t brothers. Then we fought against the Portuguese and we won. Then we fought against the Italians and the British and we won…some of the time. They made us fight their World Wars. They made us fight each other. Then we were free. We fought each other. Then we fought Ethiopia and we lost…twice. Then we fought each other. We lost. The world came to help us. We fought the world. We said we won but now we’re not sure.

Unlike the rest of Africa, Somalis tend to be more homogeneous, in that they share a common language (Somali), and a common religion (Islam). In that sense the Somali people were divided into five territories. Present day Djibouti was called French Somaliland until 1977. Until 1949, the northern section of Somalia was known to Western Powers as British Somaliland. The south-central section was known as Italian Somaliland. The southern section of Somalia, known as the Northern Frontier District, was given to Kenya. While a large western portion known as the Ogaden was given to Ethiopia. It is needless to say that Somalia went to war to twice with Ethiopia over this disenfranchised territory.

After World War II, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the USSR acquired jurisdiction as the Allied powers of World War II over the fate of the lands of the former colonies. As they could not come to an agreement on the issue of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland, the matter was referred to the United Nations. The United Nations resolution granted independence to Italian Somaliland after ten years and named the area a UN Trust Territory under Italian administration. After ten years, the north and south agreed to join and called themselves the Republic of Somalia. And so told is the invention of Somalia.

Only two years after Abdi Rashid Ali Shirmarke defeated the first president in elections, Ali Shirmarke was assassinated. A military group, led by General Mohammed Siad Barre, seized power and declared Somalia a socialist state. Siad Barre made it illegal for anyone to ask someone else what clan they were, but soon he began to deny people in the north certain rights like positions in the central government. Acts of nepotism was exacerbated by the fact that the central government consisted of a southern majority. These same regions in the north were able to establish order after the capital, Mogadishu fell in 1992, mainly because the area consisted of one major clan. The south became an array of clans in battle armor.

If I was born a century earlier I could have looked around, looked at the sky, and predicted that this was going to happen. I would have said that all of it was inevitable. But nothing is inevitable. I left my country when I was around five. I do not know how old I am. We do not celebrate birthdays in Somalia. When a country blows up, literally blows up, everybody knows that they face tough times around the corner. I lived with my family. My mother, father, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins all in one village. Because Somalia is a semi-arid desert, crops often fail. In preparation the government had grain storaged for these hard times. Some time in 1992, my family and I walked for six days on foot to the nearest town, Baardhere. There were thousands of other families looking for food. There was no food. In order to feed their army, the government had taken the food. And so we sat and waited. Slowly, we starved. Somehow, I got to a feeding center wrapped in a smelly little blanket, and was severely sick and was not responding. The center was closing so they called the clinic near by. The doctor didn’t want to go out because it was after dark. If you go anywhere even during the day you need personal bodyguards which involve “technicals” crowded was teenage boys shouldering AK 47s. A “technical” is a modified pick-up truck with an anti-aircraft gun mounted to the back. But a nurse volunteered to go with the doctor and he finally agreed. I spent a month recuperating. But I wasn’t healing. There was no medicine for me.

The war had not ended, but everyone was finished. A group of Botswanan peacekeepers visited the hospital. Their army doctor saved my life, he had the medicine I needed. The Americans were pulling out, the UN was pulling out, the aid agencies where pulling out. Somalia was too much for the world. If you were to look at a history book or other works of historical literature under Somalia, you would find very little. Maybe a reference to pirates or one incident called black hawk down. The world does not understand Somalia. And I am not sure we understand ourselves. We are on the African continent, in the African Union, but we are also in the Arab League. We speak Somali, English, Swahili, French, Italian, and Arabic. We are nearly all Muslims. We claim to be a nation of poets yet we speak with the barrel of a gun instead of our voices. We have Africa’s longest coastline yet we don’t like seafood. In Somalia we have people who speak the same language, eat the same food, and pray in the same mosque trying to kill each other. I don’t understand.

I came to the United States in 1995. My first years in Vermont were difficult and confusing. I had never seen snow before. I tried to come up with an explanation as to why the seasons changed. I thought it was because during the summer people are too hot so they run their fans and air-conditioner. Some how this cools the air. In the winter people are too cold so they fire up their stoves and drive a lot more. Somehow this heats up the planet again. I started school that fall. I was very excited to be around other kids even if I couldn’t understand what they were saying. The first time I got in trouble in school was in first grade when some kid cut me in line. I couldn’t talk to him, so I punched him. I got to know the principal. Around this time, the Disney movie The Lion King had come out. So when the kids heard I was from Africa, it was like, “Oooh, Lion King”. I just like to reiterate that Africa is the second largest and populated continent. Countries are very different, the people are very different, it is not a country. If you went on vacation to Canada, there’s no reason to say you went on a vacation to North America. The language used in The Lion King was not made up. Its Swahili; Simba means lion, Rafiki means friend, Mufasa means king, and so on. More importantly that language is specific to southern Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania.

The more I knew about American culture the less I knew about Somali culture. When I came to Vermont there was only one other Somali family here. However, I am adopted. That nurse that came from the clinic with the doctor is now my mother. So I am the only Somali within like forty miles. In addition I am a Muslim in a Christian house. I do believe that this has helped me understand the world better so it was not a bad thing. The older I got the more I wanted to find out about where I came from, but I had no one to tell me. I am an orphan. When my family and I walked six days to Baardhere, there was fifty-four of us. Now there are only two.

All this time Somalia has been in chaos. I have one uncle that lives there. We don’t talk very often but we stay in touch. In June of 2006, my mother and I went to Nairobi, Kenya, to visit him. He had to travel from the small village in Somalia on the back of a pick-up truck that was smuggling narcotics. They had to bribe the border guards. It was the first time that I had seen him in over 12 years. During the three days that I saw him, I could not make myself believe that we were related. “Who was this man?” I thought. But more importantly ,if we are connected, “Who am I”? After meeting my, uncle I did not sleep for three nights. During this time in Somalia there was sporadic gun fights. Somalia was burning.

In 2007, my grandmother died. That’s my adopted mother’s mother. After my visit with my uncle I had been struggling to reinvent myself. In the year 2007 I was planning on going to college in Canada. My grandmother died a month before I left for school. Somehow she had been the glue that held together my foundation. So at school instead of inventing myself, I spent my first year discovering new foundation.

As I gotten older I have liked Vermont more and more. I have liked it for its wilderness and its general acceptance of others. But most all I liked it because I could see the sky especially at night. I was able to run through the woods behind our house in my bare feet during the summer. I was able to look at the stars at night and wonder what lay beyond. I was able to freeze my toes while flying down a hill on a slim piece of plastic called a board and I was able to enjoy it. To this days I do not do well in big cities. When I went to New York City with a high school class, I wanted to crawl under the buildings. It was so loud, so crowed, and the buildings were so tall it made me sick. If you want to be able to see the night sky and touch the evergreen trees during the summer, then Vermont is the place to be. But if you want to learn about the world and see where you stand, then you could do better than Vermont. Of course I only learned this when I visited Toronto.

When I was in Nairobi, I saw on the TV for the first time video footage of the continuing chaos in Somalia. After 13 attempts by the International Community to create a functioning government for Somalia, in 2004 they established in their 14^th attempt, in what was this time called the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG). The TFG was supposed to coordinate between the warring parties and create a more organized interim and representative political system through to a democratic election in 2009. Unfortunately, the TFG had to fill the power void of a previous political body that, in many ways, had more legitimate power. In this way we describe legitimate power as that which is approved by the people. This previous political power was called the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) which based governmental law on traditional and religious ideology. Never-the-less, the situation gets more chaotic when in 2006 the historic foe of Somalia, Ethiopia, militarily supports the TFG. The invasion by Ethiopia is not only due to the political domestic interest of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, but also due to the political interests of the United States, and its ruthless campaign in the “war on terror”. As already proven by the catastrophic Iraq War, it is extremely unlikely and difficult for occupation to lead to sovereignty.

The truth is the there are no reasons for this to be happening. Wars are the failures of society not the failures of individuals. As much as I blame the United States, Ethiopia, and the United Nations, I blame the average Somali much more. This was our fight. This was our loss. The globalization gremlins will tell you that the world is getting smaller. I am here to tell you that its still 40,000 KM around. Feel the earth that you walk on. The Earth is not dirty, we are the Earth, we should be humbly by it presence. Face it, the world is too big for you. You can not understand it all, none of us can. Relish your family, because they are all you’ve got. They will tell you where you come from. Somalia is my country. I do not love its politics, but I believe in its people. The past and the future are very much connected. This was then, that is now. People some times see me as anti- American. Pay attention folks: having socialist idea does not make you a communist nor anti-American. The US has always left me with the feeling that there is something more to be desired. There are other counties out there, other people that are just as brave, smart, and beautiful. The US is just not my country, I just live here. I’d move to Canada, but its too cold. I wonder how long it would take to skateboard to Mexico. Until that day I will be searching for my country.

Current Projects of SPM

The Campaign to Free Somalia also known as the Somali Prosperity Movement has been faltering in its goals. In a bid to do great things we have done nothing. So in the interest of revitalizing this project we would like to restate our priorities.

Priority Number One is to educated the uneducated on the issues facing Somalia. How are we going to do this? Well through media. We will support musicians, artist, and scholars that comment and inspire change for Somalia. And then we will create our own media for our own revolution.  See the question comes down to this; “how can we get people talking about Somalia?” and the answer is this “Show them something to talk about”. Show them don’t tell them. And we will do this with creativity.  Our current media project is called the Sandalwood Project and will be produced by FireNation Studio. The Sandalwood Project is a animated allegory story for Somalia but it is made to create discussion.

Priority Number Two is to bring the Somali youth together. This is not to bring them together emotionally or spiritually. This is to bring them together physically worldwide. We hope that sometime near in the future to be able to sponsor a Somali Youth Conference with Somalis from all over the world with the indention of active community action.

This is the plan, Insha Allah