StartOfTheLine

The realest S*** I ever wrote….(about K’Naan, the Internet, and the international music scene)

I often feel like the next major movement in music will probably happen (or is happening/already happened) in some part of the world Americans don’t think about much. Think about how hip hop is right now and how we live in a post-modern, futuristic world where so many trends are driven by social media/cell phones/etc. USA music is relatively stale, and people are restless because so much of this music that hits the web is disposable bs. You pick it up off a blog and build up your iTunes. Then you realize you got a ton of wack demos from bands that suck and a bunch of wack 1-freestyle-per-day rappers. So you delete most of it, start over, and never think to support an artist you really like that has talent by buying there songs or going to their shows. Sounds true and really lame right?

But In a way, the fast paced, no-holds-barred, futuristic state of things is kind of tight though. And every now and again something from a far away part of the world surfaces and you find it and fuck with it. You like it for the fact that it’s from the other side of the world. The melodies, the cadences, the visuals, the rhythms, are completely fresh or they take American hip hop or party music and turn it on its head. These cats are in the slum in Africa or Asia making outer-space, ghetto, slum, jungle beats on stolen computers and what not. Or some kind of instrument we never heard of. MIA came through and crushed the party music game because she sounded like some aliens landed in South Asia and tried to help people overthrow some governments. What do we have in America? Some cats talking about how crack slinging rap is old and how he went to college and has a fresh average joe story? lol. That’s the new shit in America? lol. And what’s hope inspiring is that chances are that there are a ton of other MIA’s we don’t know about even with the internet (partly because their stuff isn’t in English so even if it does hit the web we won’t listen. lol)

So anyway, here’s K’Naan. Dude is from Somalia. The place where they hijack Russian and Indian oil boats and make millions. i think while I was a political science major and still paid attention to international relations, a lot of governments and organizations considered Somalia a failed state.

I’d also like to point out that dude’s material, especially on the joints I’m posting below (at least on the hooks and the rhymes), has such an East African feel to me (even though I’m a regular slave descended African American so I’m not an expert). DC stand up! There are a million Ethiopians, Eritreans, etc. running around the DMV.  And they all got their own restaurant! (just kidding. lol).  But for real, I used to dj at PURE on U St. on Saturdays.  The owner gave me some cd’s with music from East Africa on it. It had stuff from different ethnic groups in different languages. Some was Amheric, some was some other stuff I forget. K’Naan’s music has the same bounce.  Big up to everybody in the club moving their shoulders and jumping up and down. And shout out to all the white people that would walk in there randomly and try to copy the dances. lol  I’d post some of that music but I can’t find the files on my hard drive.
Click
here to listen to…
Somalia by K’Naan
(I was lazy so it’s a zshare link so forgive me ladies if you end up seeing some women’s booty’s in thongs lol. That seems to happen on zshare.)

Clickhere to listen to…
America by K’Naan and Mos Def and Chali 2na over on the Okayplayer blog.

Obama’s trying to keep us in the game and help us be less wack overall, but the rest of the world’s been telling us we fell off for a minute now. K’Naan probably won’t crush the game like MIA did, but I decided to post this largely so I could say that there’s a good chance that eventually the rest of the world’s music will just murk the US at some point.

–
Cam Jus