By Raju Mudhar Entertainment Reporter Saturday, March 13, 2010
Somali-Canadian musician K'naan performs after the medal ceremonies at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.KAI PFAFFENBACH/REUTERS |
Canadian rap stars have a tougher time than rockers in breaking through the mainstream, although for K’naan, that’s about to change big time. He’s already scaled most of the local industry’s heights – he won a Juno for his debut, his latest album was nominated for a Polaris Prize and both of his albums were critically acclaimed. But for those who haven’t been paying attention, get ready for K’naan to burst forth on your musical radar.
Born Keinan Warsame, the soft-spoken Somalian-Canadian rapper’s song, “Wavin’ Flag” is about to be everywhere, thanks to a two new versions of the song, one a charity single featuring some of biggest up-and-coming Canadian artists around and the other a reworked remix which was selected as the official song of the upcoming World Cup in South Africa.
Upon appearing on the music scene a little over three years ago, this Dusty Foot Philosopher (which happens to be title of Juno-award winning first album from 2006) peaked interest with his incredible back story. He was born in Mogadishu, but his family fled the Somali Civil War in 1991, moving to New York, before he settled with relatives in Rexdale.
“I grew up partly in Somalia's vicious streets and partly in North American streets,” he told the Star last year. “I never lived in the circles of the goody-goodies. I was a high-school dropout, hung out with thugs.”
Music was his passion, and part of his family’s story– his aunt Magool was a well known singer in Somalia and he’s the grandson of famed Somali poet Haji Mohamed – so he continued the family tradition, but putting his own spin on it. The 31-year-old father of two creates a mix of rap, hip hop, spoken word and rock that transcends the world music category.
Remarkably humble, perhaps his Canadian-ness shows when I tell him his song is going to be everywhere – even though for knowing music fans might feel like it already has been – and he apologizes for its oncoming ubiquity.
“Sorry about that,” he says on the line from London during a break in his European tour.
“Wavin’ Flag” was one of the standouts on Troubadour, which was released last February, and even before these latest developments, it served as a soundtrack to a commercial for a local radio station, he performed it at the Canada for Haiti telethon, as well as at this year’s Polaris Music Prize, where his album made the shortlist.
Perhaps it’s best to think of it as the little song that could – and will continue to do more.
Now the track is helping relief efforts in Haiti. Last month during the Olympics, more than 50 Canadian artists gathered in Vancouver and re-recorded the anthem as a charity single, with proceeds being split among Free the Children, War Child Canada and World Vision. The track was released Friday.
Dubbing themselves Young Artists for Haiti, those involved in the single include Drake, Metric’s Emily Haines, Avril Lavigne, Justin Bieber, Nelly Furtado, Broken Social Scene and many more. (For full list of artists and other info, go here). The song was recorded by legendary rock producer Bob Ezrin.
He says he had a feeling from the start this song was special from the start.
“There are certain songs you just know, you try and keep them closer but you can’t,” he says. “You just can’t really contain it and keep it for yourself.”
He took a long time writing it, holding on to it until he was ready.
“I wrote the first melody and hook and recorded it maybe two or three years ago. Then I didn’t play it for anyone or release it or anything of that nature,” he says. “Then I performed it for two years, and finally I recorded it the way I wanted to record it.
“It’s a fragile thing to record a song that you feel great about, because you know what it is in your head, and you don’t want to ruin it.”
Just like when it was selected as the World Cup anthem, it wasn’t his idea to re-record the track as a charity single. But when asked, he was all for using it as a way to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake.
“I guess we’re all trying to somehow make sense of this world and the way it is, and why things happen to places and not other places. I think in those times when we are questioning those things, we want to rid ourselves of the sadness, we want to do something. I wanted to do my part.”
He says it was amazing to work with so many talented artists, and to hear the chorus of voices added to his original.
“It really is something when you hear everybody give the best of themselves to something. There’s this one line that the Broken Social Scene sing, it’s so beautiful. I think Drake really gave something to the song as well.”
His song is now the next Canadian track to enter the pantheon of sports songs, of which the most recent was the Olympics’ “I Believe” by Nikki Yanofsky, who also appears on the charity version, and while we try to goad him into some sort of rivalry, he has nothing but nice things to say about the pint-sized powerhouse vocalist.
“She’s crazy. This little girl, she sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard. She’s so little and even in the choir, when we’re all singing, all of these people, and you could hear her. No matter how many people were singing, you could hear her. She’s amazing.”
While K’naan is extremely pleased about the choice of his song for both this cause and the event, it does beg the question if her fears becoming a one-hit wonder?
“I guess I would be, if I felt like all of my other songs were kind of sh--. If I really didn’t feel like I made good songs to listen too. If I didn’t have “Take a minute,” or “Fatima,” or other songs that span years and years of my life. If I felt like I had nothing else except “Wavin’ Flag,” then I’d feel like I kind of cheated everybody, and I would be afraid of all the attention. But I think when people hear “Wavin Flag,” people are intelligent enough to know, if someone writes a song like that, there might be something more.”
With his tour and the upcoming World Cup, his schedule is jam packed although he is slated to return in April for the Junos, where he is nominated for three awards. He says he has started recording some on his current tour, the beginning steps of his next album.
“I’m recording a lot, but I’m recording on the road, which is a different feeling than recording in the studio. I’m making some music now that I’m really excited about. I feel like that I’m in a good moment musically. More than ever,” he says. “You know what it is? I haven’t said this to anybody, but I think it’s because I visited back home in Somalia recently. I now write free from all of that. I don’t know if I could have written another album if I hadn’t gone back.”
Source: Toronto Star