I’m ready for spring to
arrive. It isn’t anything particularly
bad about the weather lately, I’m just tired of wearing my winter coat and
ready to just walk to work in a suit jacket.
I know what you’re thinking – I could probably do that now – but I have
this rule that once I put the winter coat away for winter, it stays put away,
and I’m not ready to risk it yet.
I’ve got a lot of dumb rules like
that – keeps life interesting.
Disc 492 is… The Dusty Foot Philosopher
Artist: K’Naan
Year of Release: 2005
What’s up with the Cover? Presumably this is an artistic depiction of a dusty
foot philosopher. This one’s feet would be
less dusty if he road that camel instead of walking in front of it. I don’t love this art but I like the
inclusion of a boom box – nice touch.
How I Came To Know It: I was a fan of K’Naan through the album that came
after this one, “Troubadour” (reviewed back at Disc 347). Recently I saw his third album for sale, but
decided to take the opportunity to go backward into his catalogue rather than
forward.
How It Stacks Up: I only have the two albums, but I prefer
“Troubadour.”
Rating: 2 stars.
On this
record, K’Naan describes the dusty foot philosopher as “someone who lives in poverty, but in a dignified manner and…they talk
about things that well-read people do but they’ve never read and they’ve never
been on a plane but they can tell you what’s beyond the clouds.” If you think you haven’t met someone like
this then let me suggest you haven’t been listening closely enough; wisdom is
all around us.
Unfortunately,
“The Dusty Foot Philosopher” as an album is only half folksy common-sense
insight. The other half is the guy who
thinks he’s the dusty foot philosopher who makes you wish you hadn’t listened
so closely after all.
I’m an
optimist by nature, so I prefer to err on the side of giving people – and records
– a chance to wow me, so I kept this one on for an extra rotation before I
decided what I thought. The extra spin
cycle definitely made me appreciate it more, but sadly not enough to lift it
out of average.
Like “Troubadour,”
K’Naan has a very good ear for adding African rhythms to modern hip hop song
construction. Sometimes world beats find
themselves at odds with my Western-trained ear, the more so when they are
awkwardly inserted into a song it is that much more noticeably worse. The percussion on songs like “The African Way” fit in perfectly with K’Naan’s
furiously fast, but precise rap delivery.
Add in lyrics about K’Naan’s first exposure to rap like “I remember I was seven/when rap came mysteriously
and made me feel eleven” and the song completes its crossover appreciation
loop. Also worth noting that K’Naan’s
love of rap goes to eleven; Spinal Tap would be proud.
Not so
on “Hoobaale” which loses most of the
western influences and sounds very traditionally African. It isn’t a bad song on its own merits, but it
is an odd fit on an album full of style fusion and knocks me a bit out of the
mood when it comes on.
Overall
I enjoy K’Naan’s rap delivery, but there are places on this record where he
sounds too sing-songy. This is
particularly bad on the title track, which has a children’s song ear-worm
quality that made me think it was taken from a Disney movie. In other places he sounds a bit too much like
Eminem, although props to K’Naan for rapping about worse situations than
Marshall Mathers and still sounding more positive about life while doing it.
This album
isn’t pure rap, it is more of a hip hop blend, meaning it relies a lot more
heavily on melody and hook than simply rhyming.
K’Naan is a clever enough rhyme stylist that he doesn’t need the focus
on hooks, but I like how he blends the two and he does so a hell of a lot better
than the vacuous junk populating the charts these days.
In
particular, “If Rap Gets Jealous,”
which – although it sounds a little bit like the Stones’ “Beast of Burden” – is its own song, and just as catchy. “If Rap
Gets Jealous” also appeared on “Troubadour” in a more rocked up version,
featuring Kirk Hammett. At first I
preferred the more rock version but the more I listened to this version the
more I appreciated it, and I’d say they are equally good, and sufficiently different
that I don’t begrudge them appearing on both records.
The album
rambles a bit, and lacks the direction it needs. There are eighteen tracks, which are way too
many, and I think I’d upgrade the record to a solid three stars if he’d boiled
it down to the best six. In football,
when you score a touchdown don’t overdo the celebration; act like you’ve been
there before and you’re going to be back again.
Making records is the same; don’t act like it’s your last chance to make
an album; you’ll make another. Save the
tracks for that and by the time you’re ready you’ll probably find that most of
them aren’t worth including after all.
Overall,
this is a fairly good record but I have a funny feeling that as years go by, I’ll
be reaching for “Troubadour” the vast majority of the time I’m in the mood for
K’Naan. Musically, I like getting a
little dust on my feet as much as the next guy but I still want to know where I’m
going.
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