K'naan Quotes

I faced quite a few challenging times, and in front of those, I was more positive than some people not facing those conditions. I'm actually of the belief now that it is that struggle that offers you that open-hearted hope.

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

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 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.

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 am one of those people that's never been really cynical about life, you know.

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.

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

To reach your goal authentically is probably, in the end, going to mean much more to you than having reached it in a false way.

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.

Quotes of the Hour

It's a crazy experience for me to be in a Foo Fighters video.

Iraq is a small but very proud nation.

I'm gonna tell y'all what we tell the crowd every night when we play back in the States. We tell them to remember people sleeping in a sandstorm so that we can be free.

As a black woman, I have no particular interest in maintaining the status quo. Why would I? The status quo is harmful; the status quo is significantly racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other things that I think need to change.

I honestly think I was an Indian living in the time of the Trail of Tears. Something like that. Every time I read books about back then, I get so devastatingly sad, so, so… I feel such a deep connection to it.

K'naan Quotes

More Related Quotes

Quotes of the Hour

Popular Topics