Latest K'naan Quotes from Interviews

• I do think that some of my songs, like Take a Minute, are like the train between the two worlds. It starts out with the question of "how did Gandhi ever withstand the hunger strikes and all / he didn't do it to gain power or money as I recall," and its sweep reaches all the way to this part of the world. I think maybe I'm a translator, because I lived in both worlds and truly understand them. I understand the discontent that comes from not having. But I also understand the anxiety that comes from wealth and convenience.

  K'naan

  Song, Thinking, Anxiety

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• There's definitely anger, the demand of more from the world, a demand for justice. There's no other way I can perform the vocals than the way you hear them. It's not just the words, it's what is being felt.

  K'naan

  Justice, World

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• The pirates are serving a purpose right now. They come from regions which have been completely ignored, and Westerners have tried to destroy these regions by their constant plundering of resources and by the illegal dumping of nuclear waste. The pirates really began in order to discourage these actions - initially. And then the business became lucrative.

  K'naan

  Order, Pirate, Nuclear

  "K’naan: Straight Outta Mogadishu". Interview with Eamon Kircher-Allen, www.motherjones.com. March/April 2009.

• It is the very survival of the streets that makes children pick up guns in Somalia, not some older, wide-eyed rebel leader. My intimate experiences during these years are something which I have shared with people through my music but am very careful about how they are addressed.

  K'naan

  Children, Gun, Years

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• I learned to fire guns at the age of nine or so, but luckily was not out killing people. We zigzagged the streets to escape those trying to kill us. I guess it would have been a matter of time till I turned around with a gun myself, to go after those coming for us. But I was fortunate. The grenade incident was about an explosion which destroyed a section of my school, from a grenade that me and my cousin detonated by accident. We both lived to tell about it.

  K'naan

  Cousin, School, Gun

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• In the time of war, everyone was basically trying to live and manage the best they could. But you also had another period which was not a hard time at all - it was just a beautiful time. I lived in both eras. I got to fully experience and appreciate both the tragedy of Somalia and the beauty of it.

  K'naan

  Beautiful, War, Hard Times

  "K’naan: Straight Outta Mogadishu". Interview with Eamon Kircher-Allen, www.motherjones.com. March/April 2009.