Banning Eyre reached K’Naan by telephone in Los Angeles in March, 2009, to discuss the Somali rapper’s work, and in particular, his new CD, Troubadour.  Here’s their conversation.

B.E.:  We spoke after your Poisson Rouge show in New York last fall, and you told me briefly about your history and past.  I want to clarify one point.  How were you first introduced to rap and hip hop music?

K’Naan:  Back in Mogadishu, when you talk to your father who is abroad, you ask for clothes and stuff like that.  But I had, before that, heard a rap in a pop song, and I wanted to hear more of that music, so I asked my father what that music was.  He said that's was called hip-hop music now.  And so he eventually sent me the album of Eric B. and Rakim, Paid in Full (1987).  That was my first thorough listen of a hip-hop album. …. It sounded so young and fresh.

B.E.:  What became of your father?

K’Naan:  He's around.  He lives in Mogadishu.  He moved back to Somalia.  He lives there.  We're very close.  I was on the phone with him last night. 

B.E.:  He must be very proud of what are you doing.

K’Naan:  Yeah, he is.  He told me he picked up the album the other day.  He's been listening to it.  He loves it.  He said that he has a particular favorite song that is by listening to over a hundred times, he claims.  “Fatima.” 

B.E.:  Hmm.  I don't see that here.  But I only have the advance.

K’Naan:  Yeah, the advance is wrong.  In fact, the final album is not the same.  If you have the advance, you also don't have “America,” you also don't have “Waving Flag.”  Those are real key cuts on the album.

B.E.:  Of course.  And we will talk about them.  But first, let's talk big picture.  What we trying to accomplish with this album?

K’Naan:  I think I was just trying to accomplish clarity more than anything else, you know, like where I stand in the musical stage.  Like where is my corner.  Where I fit into that.  I think the album that I made before, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, hinted at that, hinted that my position, my relevance in music.  This one, I wanted to put a stamp on it and make it real clear for people who did not understand the metaphors.

B.E.:  It's not easy to do.  You stand in such a complex crossroad, and we’ll get into that.  I notice that you recorded a lot of this in Jamaica.  Why?  How did that happen?

K’Naan:  Well, I was just looking for a place to record the album, just one place, where I would not have to keep changing studios and keep changing environments and atmosphere.  I wanted to have one feeling that would go on throughout this music that is all so different from one song to the next.  But I wanted to have the feeling be the same, so I didn't want to move around.  And so my good friend Steven and David Marley were aware of that, and so one day, Stephen called me and invited me basically.  He gave me a very honor-filled invitation, to say, "Come and stay and record at Bob Marley's house.  And we will honor you with the key.  We feel that your music is something that we want to get behind and we want the world to know.  You'll take your time."  We spent about three or four months there to create the album.

B.E.:  Beautiful.  Now you had a toured earlier with Damien Marley, right?

K’Naan:  Yeah, I did.  Me and Stephen toured the worlds together, the US, Europe, and Australia.  And then Damian and Steve together toured, as well with me in the US.

B.E.:  So you’ve known these guys for years.

K’Naan:  Yeah, we've become very close. 

B.E.:  Beautiful.  Now when we talked the last time, you told me about how you are using samples of Ethiopian music, and how this music was to you what R&B was to Kanye?  I hear some of those samples.  In the intro to “ABC,” on “Dreamer.”  Where else do we hear that?

K’Naan:  It's throughout the album.  You hear it on "I Come Prepared."  When you get the whole album, you'll hear it very prominently in a song called "America."  You hear it in "15 Minutes Away."

B.E.:  What were you using as source material?

K’Naan:  Just older records.  Vinyl.  Some Muhammed Ahmed.  Tlahoun Gessesse.  Mulatu Astatqe.  That's kind of my introduction.  The Ethiopiques stuff is easy to sample, because it's really well done quality wise, the recordings.

B.E.:  Great material.  Let's talk about some of the songs.  Tell me a bit about what was behind, or what inspired these songs.  Let's start with "Dreamer.”

K’Naan:  “Dreamer” was really just kind of thinking about myself and trying to be reflective of myself in a more well-rounded way, like a more balanced way.  A true idea of myself.  I understand that a lot of people, because of the music I make, think that I must be like dreadfully serious all the time or something.  And I wanted to make a statement on the song that that's not true.  You know, like that leisure is medicine.  We're human and we enjoy.  Even throughout times of struggle, we have moments of joy and all of that, and since my life is really made up of all of that, I wanted to make a song that reflected that.

B.E.:  You still know how to talk to a pretty girl.

K’Naan:  Right.  Absolutely.

B.E.:  I don't doubt it.  Let's take a somewhat heavier song, "People Like Me."

K’Naan:  "People Like Me" started with the melody and that chorus line.  “Heaven…” I was in Tuff Gong in the big recording room and just walking around, and my friend had the guitar and was playing these chords and I was singing that, and it was just one of those songs that touched me.  As soon as I recorded just the vocals and the guitar, I was really moved by that statement.  As if it wasn't me that wrote it.  I listened back and I was moved.  I did the entire first verse without knowing.  I just wrote it.  I didn't have a plan to write about a soldier.  The story just kind of directed me to this American soldier’s life.  And I became conscious that it was about another person, and then I wrote about another person on the second verse, and that I wrote about myself to close it off.

B.E.:  And in the verse about yourself, you are writing about the pain of having to leave, and particularly having to leave behind someone that you cared about.

K’Naan:  Right.  Specifically, my closest friend and cousin.

B.E.:  When I saw you the other night, you sang a song that I wasn't familiar with that talked about remembering a battle in which you saw friends killed.  I trust this is autobiographical from your childhood. 

K’Naan:  That's not on the album.  That's the original of “Waving Flag.”  I do it a cappella in concert, but those are the original lyrics.  And I talk about seeing his friend killed.

B.E.:  And that's a true story from your childhood.

K’Naan:  Unfortunately.  Yes.  Unfortunately that story is true for many people, many Somalis.  This is not like a shock to Somalis.

B.E.:  And of course it's just gone on since you left.  How old were you when you left?

K’Naan:  I was 13, going on 14. 

B.E.:  How about "Fire in Freetown?"  What's going on in that song?

K’Naan:  That's a strange love song about a complicated woman, you know?  It’s about a woman who is much like a country that has an intense, physical beauty, but with like bad governance.  She is easy to fall apart.  She is difficult, but you don't want to leave her.  So it was a parallel song between the countries that we now in Africa that are.  Most people say, "If only this country was stable, it would be the most beautiful place in the world to live."  And so I was talking about these women in my life who are those countries.

B.E.:  I see.  That's interesting.  Somalia, Sudan, Liberia.  These are the sort of countries were talking about.

K’Naan:  And Sierra Leone.

B.E.:  And sadly, Zimbabwe is slipping into that category.  Let me ask you about "Does It Really Matter?"

K’Naan:  Yeah, you know, that's not in the album.  It didn't make the album.  It might be like an additional song on iTunes.  But you know, it is just kind of a fun song about music first.  Speaking in a real current, modern day, young music statement, saying like, "You know, lyrically, I'm just as good as the best of them, put does it matter that I'm…." you know that kind of statement of, if it's good, it's good.

B.E.:  Tell me about "America."

K’Naan:  "America" is really cool.  It's a beautiful sample, the way the music... I think, musically, it's the most interesting song for me on the album.  It's got Mos Def and Chalie 2na.  You don't hear the English until about two minutes into the song.  It's a real fresh kind of a song.

B.E.:  How about "I Come Prepared."  That's a very hard hitting song.?

K’Naan:  I wanted to do a song that kind of showcases my lyrics.  It's kind of overtly showing off.  I wanted to show off lyrical strength, and flow, and that sort of thing.  Without giving anybody a pause. 

B.E.:  It is relentless, powerful.

K’Naan:  Damian does this incredible job.

B.E.:  Let's talk about "Waving Flag.”  What's behind that song?

K’Naan:  Well, the song... I don't know, man, that's the song that's the most difficult to explain because of how moving it is to me and how easily it came to me.  It's just one of those songs.  The song came in a melody, and it was very automatic.  I felt it quickly and I recorded it quickly.  There was no labor process.  You know it's real touching when you listen to the song on the album.

B.E.:  When I heard you perform it, and people sang in the room, both times it was really powerful.  Let's talk about the song that you redid it here, "If Rap Gets Jealous."  It's very interesting to me the way you address hip hop, the whole phenomenon that is hip-hop.  You have this very interesting relationship with that, where on the one hand you are embracing it but on the other hand you are very clear about how you are not necessarily going to play by its rules.  Talk about that and how to express in the song.

K’Naan:  Well, because, you know, I have a lot of friends who are rappers, who make hip-hop music, and they make great music.  And then, whenever they do anything different, they catch a backlash from hip-hop lovers.  Hip hop lovers, they are like the would-be African dictators.  You can never do nothing different if you're in rap.  You know, like everyone is a dictator.  “No, no, no, no, you can't do that.”  You know, Kanye was getting all this backlash because of Heartbreak 808.  Why not let the guy do something else?  Sure, he has made some great hip hop albums, but why can't... you know and I mean.  Anytime a rapper goes and does something that they feel, I feel like everyone attacks them.  And so that's kind of where I was, what I was talking about.  "I don't belong to you.  I am for you, but I don't belong to you."

B.E.:  That kind of rigidity of expectations on the part of community of listeners, reminds me a little of Congolese music.  Again you have this very big, very powerful, very decisive audience that is so clear about what they want, and it's interesting when you're dealing with forms that are so modern and so hybridized already, and yet if you vary from it, you're in trouble.  I love the quote I read from you where you talked about your first album covers so many bases that no one was going to accuse you of leaving a box because there is no box.  You don't want to be boxed in by that or anything else, do you?

K’Naan:  By anything.  I really would like the freedom to make the music that I feel, and that's all I want.  I can't do the jukebox thing.

B.E.:  I'm writing a paper about you and Emanuel Jal and the kind of way that you to stride worlds.  It plays out in the music, it plays out in the lyrics, it plays out in everything you do, down to the way you dress.  Everyone is critiquing you and trying to own you are trying to make judgments on you.  I just read from the Village Voice where Peter Scholtes is complaining that he doesn't hear enough African music in your new album.?  He says, “African tunes and time signatures are so fully absorbed in a Tracy Chapman Jay-Z dream that they barely register."  It seems like he is expecting something, and then when he doesn't get it, he's blaming you for it. 

K’Naan:  Well, the truth is, you can't come into it with expectations.  If you come in with some kind of an expectation, you kind of lose from the beginning.  Because I'm not interested in satisfying you.  Even if you love me.  Even if you are so much a fan of my music that I want you to be pleased.  It's very likely that I will do exactly just what I want.  And I don't think that's a fair assessment either of the music.  Because honestly, if you listen to "Fire in Freetown," and you know how to count music, you can tell that it is just different.  The swing is different.  In "America", the swing is different.  So many songs.  Even just the sonics in the sounds we’re using, and the melodic structures.  Songs like "Fatima.”  Or “15 Minutes Away."  These are completely different.

B.E.:  This is the flip side of if rap gets jealous.  This is if the world music gets jealous.

K’Naan:  They both want to own you in a way.  And you can't let them.  The truth is, they both have to give up this attempt at ownership.  I remember.  I did the world music thing.  They were all in love when I won the BBC Newcomer world music award.  And they were like, “Oh K’Naan, the greatest thing to happen for a long time" and such and such.  And then this incident happened in Sweden.  And I did a song called "Kick Push,” addressing the thing with violent inclinations that are suppressed by spirituality.  That's what the song is about.  And I caught all this backlash from that.  All these world music, super goody-goody fans were like, "How can our K’Naan do that?  How can you talk like the other guys, the other rappers.  We would never stoop so low as to listen to them.  He's talking like them.  He's being violent."  And in response, I'm like saying to them, "You have no clue what I come from, do you?  You have no idea."

Like Emmanuel Jal chooses to be nonviolent.  He chooses that.  That is a choice.  But don't push him.  You know I mean?  You don't push guys like us.  You push guys like us into a corner, the old guy comes out.

B.E.:  In the words of the "Kick Push" song you talk about how if you had a gun or knife, it would have all been different.

K’Naan:  And you know what?  I swear it would have been different.  That's the truth.  I am fortunate that I didn't have a gun in my hand.

B.E.:  Okay.  That’s honest.

K’Naan:  It's the truth.  I am not bigger than what I really am.  I really am that.  It is by choice that I like peace.  I love peace.

B.E.:  Sure.  I think this vividly portrays what is so awkward about this position that you are in, bridging worlds that really have a very hard time talking to each other.  I was with a couple of people who I didn't know well that I'd met at the concert the other night, and they were somewhat like that.  They were people who loved you, but they didn't like to use the n-word.  And they were sort of spinning in their mind this scenario where you were being pressured by hip-hop people to be more edgy and violent than you really are.

K’Naan:  That's kind of stupid to think about.  If you think of someone who lived in Mogadishu for 13 years, at 14 years, in WarDiigley, in Mogadishu's “river of blood.”  And then all he lived in when he left there was the ghettos of North America.  You don't know what kind of strength and genuine effort it takes for that person to have a peaceful aura.  No one is pressuring that.  If anything, the pressure is coming from how to be good. 

B.E.:  Yeah.  I read one place where you said that no one you grew up with was ever not in prison, so it's very normal.  That kind goes to the point.

K’Naan:  Yes.  They don't get that.  They just want to have a hero of their own who is clean coming out of mean, who has great clean smelling socks all the time, a completely sanitized African.  That's really kind of a childish state.

B.E.:  And you feel a definite need to contradict or counteract that impression.

K’Naan:  Well, because it's ignorance.  It is ignorant, and it's not true, and it's also because it has a certain entitlement attached to it which I find very discomforting.

B.E.:  Well said.  When I spoke to Emmanuel Jal, we were talking about his “Fifty Cent” song, and then I hit that great Fifty Cent lyric in your "What is Hardcore?” “If I rhyme about home and got descriptive, I’d mke Fifty Cent look like Limp Biskit.”  Emmanuel is so much more deferential, "Mr. Fifty Cent, here's something you might want to think about."  And then your line is so much more, well, on the one hand, confident.  So these are contrasting views of you guys in this kind of contentious dialog with hip-hop.

K’Naan:  Well, you know, it's just how we were born to approach things.  Sometimes, I am more comfortable with the firm slap on the face of people when I want to wake them up, rather than whispering to them.  And saying "Wake up, wake up."  Sometimes I’m more comfortable with that, because that is what I have been around and seen work.  I know this.  I know this area.  I know the neighborhoods.  I lived in for two years when it was considered murder capital in Washington, DC's Southeast.

B.E.:  Really?  I knew you had lived in Harlem and in Minneapolis, but I didn't know but Washington.

K’Naan:  Yeah, I lived in Southeast, Anacostia.  So, you know, we were in the hood.  I know that world so well that no one can tell me about it.  Because the other half of my life, forget the one in Mogadishu, the other half was in that kind of environment.

B.E.:  That was all before Toronto?

K’Naan:  No.  After Toronto.  When I was about 18, 17 years old, things have gone so bad in Toronto, that eventually, my teenage years, all the guys that I spent time with in Toronto who were all from one neighborhood in Toronto, and I mean, eight had died.  You know, so in that environment, at some point, I decided to take flight and just take off.  So I moved to Washington, DC, in a neighborhood that was one of the worst in America.

B.E.:  Out of the frying pan and into the fire?

K’Naan:  Right.  And so we lived there and managed to survive and managed to live, and earned our respect in the streets.  The other day I was talking to this guy who understands my music and is from New York and all that.  And we were just talking about the promotional side of things, and he said, "You know, it's interesting to me, because half the gangster rappers have not experienced half of what you experienced in your North American life."

B.E.:  Even in your North American life.  I did not realize this.

K’Naan:  Right.  And that's why it's so bizarre to me when world music lovers are like, "Oh K’Naan, but why does he say this?"  You just have no idea.

B.E.:  That's for sure.

K’Naan:  I do a lot to try to maintain goodwill in my music.  They’re telling me I have to go on to the next interview.

B.E.:  Okay, just one more question.  We talked about violence.  Let's talk about sex.  From what I know about East Africa, I get the idea that in traditional Somali culture, there's a kind of courtliness and politeness.  I know it's been hard for hip-hop there to approach these lines of sexuality.  But given your experience, it's a completely different story.  This is another thing people struggle with.  Talk to me about how you deal with sex and relationships between men and women and that kind of stuff.  What's your attitude towards that in your art?

K’Naan:  Well, I address it the way that I do in my real life.  I address it in a discreet manner.  I don't have sexualized music.  And the reason is because I think that is such a magical, and a massive undertaking because it’s so private and so personal all the time.  So I kind of just, if I talk about it, I tend to talk about it in the way a Somali would.  And the Somali people can do sexual music, believe it or not.  When you hear some Somali music, by legendary people, and they're talking about the pointedness of a woman's breasts, and what it does to the man's heart, it's very graphic and very vivid.  But they mask it with such beauty in the language that you never feel that it’s vulgar.

B.E.:  So do you think about that when you go that way?

K’Naan:  I don't even think about it.  It's not in my nature.  I can't make it a vulgar thing, because it's not in my nature, just because I'm a Somali.

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