K'Naan Keeps It Real

02/26/09 7:16pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

Imagine being invited to record your next album at a Kingston, Jamaica studio owned by Bob Marley's family.

K'Naan doesn't have to. He's friends with the reggae legend's sons, Stephen and Damian Marley, who extended him a "unique invitation" to cut Troubadour at the family's studio.

"They knew that I was about to begin recording my album and that I really wanted to have one studio that I could record the album in," K'Naan says on the phone from a tour stop in Oakland, Calif. "I didn't want to go from studio to studio and break up the feeling or destroy the vibe.

"They knew that, and Stephen was like, 'Look, I'd never do this for anyone else, but basically, here's the key to the house.'"

While it's easy to ask K'Naan if he was freaking out at the prospect of recording at the home studio, he says the vibe was quite relaxed. He got an apartment across the street and says he spent little to no time stressing over recording.

"A lot of it was just chilling and hanging out, taking it in. I wasn't trying to be under the pressure. I think that's kind of unnatural, just to be like, 'Oh, you know, I have to come up with a song right now.'"

Troubadour is a bit different from K'Naan's 2006 Polaris Music Prize-nominated The Dusty Foot Philosopher debut. It's a disc the rapper says represents "four years' difference" in his life. It features more material that one could argue seems geared towards an American audience. For instance, "ABCs" is the danciest, most mainstream track K'Naan has recorded.

Troubadour also features appearances from the likes of Metallica's Kirk Hammett and Maroon 5's Adam Levine. K'Naan tried to get Feist on the album and had a particular track in mind for her, but he dropped the track from Troubadour once she said she couldn't do it.

That's not to say Troubadour doesn't still feature musings on K'Naan's home country of Somalia, subjects which peppered The Dusty Foot Philosopher. "Somalia" examines the current state of the troubled country and "15 Minutes Away" is a look at what it's like to be dependent on Western Union money transfers while abroad. "T.I.A.," an acronym for "This Is Africa," explores the continent's struggles and includes a particularly poignant line about grocery stores there playing entire 2Pac albums (which is something this writer has experienced firsthand).

K'Naan says the album isn't a stylistic switch and is just representative of where his mind is at these days. Much has changed since he released The Dusty Foot Philosopher. In particular, he's become a father.

"Just imagine what happens in a four-year period in someone's life," he says. "You grow, you change, your convictions change, your ideas... you know, all kinds of stuff happens.

"I had children. I became a father. That's a pretty massive change. All those things, I think, affect the music. I've grown artistically and become really different."

K'Naan emphasizes that he still makes music purely for the desire to "make a great song," and if people can draw anything else from his lyrics, beats and rhymes, then more power to them.

"If anything else is in there after that, it's kind of a plus. All these other things that people say it has, well, that's just great. But really, the point of the song is to make a great song."

K'Naan has these dates scheduled:

Feb. 27 Washington, DC @ Millennium Stage at The Kennedy Center (free)
March 1 Allston, MA @ Harper's Ferry
March 2 Philadelphia, PA @ World Café Live
March 4 Atlanta, GA @ Vinyl
March 9 Portland, OR @ Berbati's Pan
March 10 Seattle, WA @ Neumos Crystal Ball Reading Room
March 11 Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
March 12 Nelson, BC @ Finley's Irish Bar & Grill
March 13 Calgary, AB @ Marquee Room
March 14 Edmonton, AB @ Pawn Shop
March 15 Saskatoon, SK @ Louis' Pub