I'm writing from a place of - a center of authenticity, somewhere that only I know how to write from. K'naan More Quotes by K'naan More Quotes From K'naan It's better to light a candle than to curse the dark K'naan lighteyedark Mindless violence, well let me try to paint it. K'naan raphip-hopbrother Until the lion learns to speak, the tales of hunting will be weak. K'naan huntinglionsspeak And any man who knows a thing, knows he knows not a damn, damn thing at all. K'naan damnknowsmen When I get older, I will be stronger K'naan strongerflagsfreedom I'm not about trying to get and get and get. I feel good when I get, but I kind of feel better when I give. K'naan feel-goodfeel-bettergiving My life owes me. Like an overdose, I'm slowly K'naan armsraptrouble The people of Somalia just do not have a voice. They are to me the most forgotten people in the world. K'naan voicepeopleworld It's not longer 'Look what I can do, I can do it better then you.' It's just I am. K'naan i-can-do-itlifelooks To reach your goal authentically is probably, in the end, going to mean much more to you than having reached it in a false way. K'naan goalmeanway It was interesting to find how dominating American vision is all over the world. I think there's something to be said about the world's mindset and its economics and all of that, and I think it affects the way we see ourselves and it affects music. K'naan visioninterestingthinking I faced quite a few challenging times, and in front of those, I was more positive than some people not facing those conditions. I'm actually of the belief now that it is that struggle that offers you that open-hearted hope. K'naan strugglechallengespeople 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 gunchildrenyears Somalis really are very musically sophisticated, and they're about their own thing. K'naan sophisticated You have to let the world speak to you and then you speak, you know, so I'm in that moment now where I'm finding the world's voice. K'naan voicespeakworld I wasn't making music consciously when I was younger. I was a musician, but that has its own stigmas. Anywhere on the planet, it's one of the more undervalued positions. K'naan stigmaplanetsmusician I think it's a mistake to work on success in career. I've worked on my passions obsessively. How can I say what I want to say more precisely than the last time I said it? Success is such an elusive concept. When you work for it, I think you get it in a way you might regret it. K'naan passionregretmistake 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 cousingunschool 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 piratenuclearorder Hip-hop in Africa has been very often a duplication of an American experience, but in a context that's totally alien to it. K'naan hipship-hopaliens
