K'naan Quotes K'naan I'm an optimist about other people. I'm not an optimist about myself. About Myself Optimist Other People
I enjoy mediation. I think the artist's position is often to mend the things we feel are broken. Whether that's between two cultures or two thoughts. We're always trying to reach, trying to expand something. K'naan
I think it's a mistake to work on success in career. I've worked on my passions obsessively. How can I say what I want to say more precisely than the last time I said it? Success is such an elusive concept. When you work for it, I think you get it in a way you might regret it. K'naan
The problem is that rap is so often a caricature of its own image. Nobody comes to the table with the seriousness of the effect that it can have; nobody is prepared for that. K'naan
My question about my art and my music has always been, 'Am I good, or am I good because?' I'm not the artist who wants to have the 'because' attached. K'naan
It was not my dream to be an artist. How could it have been? I thought, artist, much like a leader, was something you either were or weren't. Never something you set out to be. K'naan
I don't feel political most of the time. Sometimes I'm placed in positions because no one else will go there. K'naan
You want to reach people, but you also want to reach them in the most authentic way. You now have a mass market and an audience that's listening, but they're in love with a song that means absolutely nothing to you. K'naan
The people of Somalia just do not have a voice. They are to me the most forgotten people in the world. K'naan
I'm writing from a place of – a center of authenticity, somewhere that only I know how to write from. K'naan
I know that often times a lot of people who work in music, whether they be labels and so on or even artists, want personal recognition. We want to be recognized for something, for what we did. I'd rather my song be recognized for what it's doing and that's important. It's not so important how many people know me. K'naan
There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another. Elwyn Brooks White
My mother was a very beautiful lady, I thought. She was very good to me. I guess – she died when I was nine and a half, but if she had lived, I probably wouldn't be trying to play guitar. She wanted me to be known, but as something else. Not a guitar player. B. B King
Overall, Korean pop serves as the foundation of my musical upbringing. As a result, the melodies that I create just exude that type of vibe. G-Dragon
I played a lot of keyboards, but I really wanted to produce the sound that was in my head that I was trying to emulate on the keys. I wanted to do it for real. And it makes me look at the keys in a different way. So it's like I'm looking at the guitar and bass more like meat and potatoes and keys like coloring over top of it, you know. D'Angelo
K'naan
Elwyn Brooks White
B. B King
G-Dragon
D'Angelo
Vladimir Putin