But we're not here to discuss our daytime existences, we're hear to talk about music, so here goes.
Disc 347 is...Troubadour
Artist: K'Naan
Year of Release: 2010
What’s Up With The Cover?: The artist in question gives us a head & shoulders shot, with the added bonus of a thoughtful hand. I like the hat as well. This cover says 'cool and collected' much like K'Naan seems on the album.
How I Came To Know It: I saw the video for "Take A Minute" and the song spoke to me, lyrically and musically. I took a chance based on very little exposure beyond this, although I did read a couple of positive reviews just to be sure I wasn't getting a dud.
How It Stacks Up: K'Naan has three studio albums, but I only own "Troubadour" so there isn't anything for me to stack it up against at this point.
Rating: 3 stars but almost 4
When I bought this album last year it instantly went into heavy rotation around the house. Sheila and I both like it, and it was a good fit for many activities, from pure listening, to having on in the background while playing games to entertaining friends. Well, maybe not the last one; I always sensed our friends never liked it as much as we did.
Suffering from a slight case of overplay, the bloom is a little off the rose for me as well and I've started to notice the album's few warts. Some are longstanding grievances of mine, such as the record being 16 songs (14 being a good maximum for artists to aim for). Others only came out this time around, like some weak rhymes in the raps. For example, in a couple of places K'Naan uses 'anus' when he means to say 'ass' simply to generate a rhyme. A rhyme should serve a poem, not the other way around, and the same goes for rap.
Those exceptions aside, the album walks a beautiful line, with K'Naan sharing his difficult and often tragic experiences in war torn Somalia and yet somehow maintaining a gentleness of soul that comes out in his smooth delivery. Most rappers who sing about gun violence as bad as this make every effort to show how tough they are to have survived it, but on "Troubadour" you get the impression K'Naan is every bit aware of how lucky he was to get out of that situation alive and to Canada with his family. He is tough, but it is a tough that is aware of how fragile strength can be in the face of firearms and machetes.
For example, in "I Come Prepared" he raps:
"So come now don't you try to play the hero
Around here we've got pirates with torpedoes
Alongside all the warlords and beardos"
This is a song that calls out anyone not from the experience, daring them to hold their own violent experience against his. But unlike traditional gangsta rappers, K'Naan is always aware of his own faults. In the next stanza he raps:
"And if you shut me down you can kill my ego
Which is my enemy - makes you my amigo
So either way you and I are button and needle"
In fact, K'Naan first caught my attention not through anger and bravado, but with "Take A Minute," a song all about quiet endurance and how important it is to take a minute and calmly look around before acting. When I hear "Take A Minute" it always calms me, and reminds me that things are going to be alright, but only if I help make it that way.
Musically, this record is incredibly diverse. It uses traditional African sounds, modern rap beats as well as piano and horn section when occasion calls for it. The tempos vary, but the songs all have a gentle rolling quality, and K'Naan's raps come out effortlessly. His style is so relaxed that when he brings in guest vocalists I find myself wishing he would just do the whole song himself.
A few of the songs edge into the silly, including "Bang Bang" about falling for a dangerous girl and "15 Minutes Away" about the excitement of being wired money by Western Union when you're flat broke. These songs come across as very honest, but the narratives are weak compared to other songs on the record. If K'Naan were looking to cut back to a tasteful number of tracks, these two could go. These songs are the exceptions, mind you, with the majority being interesting, heartfelt and possessing of a catchy pop hook that makes you welcome them like old friends from the first listen.
I might have almost gone to four stars, except for one heinous decision to include the "Coca Cola Celebration Mix" of "Wavin' Flag," which you may recall as Coke's theme song for the recent World Cup of Soccer.
The original song, "Wavin' Flag" is a favourite of mine, and is about all the deceit and empty promises of various political movements in Somalia, organizing against one another as the people beneath them continue to suffer. K'Naan, positive as ever, imagines a better world one day, singing "when I get older/I will be stronger/they'll call me freedom/just like a wavin' flag." It is like having the sentiments of a protest folk song reimagined as rap.
The remix turns an inspiring track into a song about soccer. Don't get me wrong, I think soccer is fine enough (if there isn't any football or hockey on) and I even get why an artist like K'Naan would make this decision. It made him a lot of money, as well as international known, and probably sold more than anything else. Also, it is his song, and he's entitled to do whatever he wants with it. I just regret that it swamps out the original song which was so much more meaningful and interesting.
Even Janelle Monae's great song "Tightrope" is being used to sell cars these days, and I support artists getting some extra money this way, since it is harder than ever to make a living making music. I just wish K'Naan could have written a whole different song for the World Cup, or maybe just put it out there for the I-tune download crowd, and kept it off the CDs us old timers still buy.
Then again, as K'Naan warns me, "And any man who knows a thing/knows he knows not a damn damn thing at all." Words for every music critic to live by.
Best tracks: TIA, I Come Prepared, Wavin' Flag, Fatima, Take A Minute, People Like Me
No comments:
Post a Comment