K'naan Quotes

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.

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.

I'm not about trying to get and get and get. I feel good when I get, but I kind of feel better when I give.

Art isn't held with the same high regard as it is after success. In any country, in any language, you're a loser if you're making music until you prove otherwise.

The poetry I grew up on is really an intense form of poetry; it's so pure and powerful.

I'm an optimist about other people. I'm not an optimist about myself.

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.

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.

Somalis really are very musically sophisticated, and they're about their own thing.

I have moments of darkness, of anger, and moments of rage. They do creep up at the most inopportune times. Not to recognize that in my music would give people a sense of sainthood that I don't necessarily have or even want to have.

I wasn't making music consciously when I was younger. I was a musician, but that has its own stigmas. Anywhere on the planet, it's one of the more undervalued positions.

Quotes of the Hour

We're proud to be lifetime musicians and a band that lives like a band and loves the music and gives our lives to it.

Politics should not interfere with sports. And sports should impact politics.

I never wanted to be like other blues singers. I might like hearing them play, but I've never wanted to be anyone other than myself. There are a few people that I've wished I could play like, but when I tried, it didn't work.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

I'm so happy because today I found my friends – they're in my head.

K'naan Quotes

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