You want to reach people, but you also want to reach them in the most authentic way. You now have a mass market and an audience that's listening, but they're in love with a song that means absolutely nothing to you. 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 light eye dark Mindless violence, well let me try to paint it. K'naan rap hip-hop brother Until the lion learns to speak, the tales of hunting will be weak. K'naan hunting lions speak And any man who knows a thing, knows he knows not a damn, damn thing at all. K'naan damn knows men When I get older, I will be stronger K'naan stronger flags freedom 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-good feel-better giving My life owes me. Like an overdose, I'm slowly K'naan arms rap trouble The people of Somalia just do not have a voice. They are to me the most forgotten people in the world. K'naan voice people world 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-it life looks 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 goal mean way 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 vision interesting thinking 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 struggle challenges people 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 gun children years Somalis really are very musically sophisticated, and they're about their own thing. K'naan sophisticated I'm writing from a place of - a center of authenticity, somewhere that only I know how to write from. K'naan authenticity know-how writing 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 voice speak world 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 stigma planets musician 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 passion regret mistake 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 cousin gun school 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 pirate nuclear order
