K'naan Quotes

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.

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.

I don't feel political most of the time. Sometimes I'm placed in positions because no one else will go there.

The people of Somalia just do not have a voice. They are to me the most forgotten people in the world.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It was interesting to find how dominating American vision is all over the world. I think there's something to be said about the world's mindset and its economics and all of that, and I think it affects the way we see ourselves and it affects music.

Quotes of the Hour

I have to admit I've found myself doing the same things that a lot of other rock stars do or are forced to do. Which is not being able to respond to mail, not being able to keep up on current music, and I'm pretty much locked away a lot. The outside world is pretty foreign to me.

I would write down the lyrics to 'C.R.E.A.M.' in Korean – not translating it, but phonetically writing out each word. I didn't know what they were saying, so I would just write everything down as I heard it. I would recite it and imitate it like that. That's how I started to write my own raps.

You always have to think in a new modern way, and you always have to push yourself in fashion because it's a big treadmill. You can't really get off it. You just have to move a little faster.

My mom is in charge of my earnings.

I am convinced that the norm in Russia should become a family with three children.

K'naan Quotes

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