I'm an optimist about other people. I'm not an optimist about myself.

Next quotes

• K'naan:

  My question about my art and my music has always been, 'Am I good, or am I good because?' I'm not t

• K'naan:

  Hip-hop in Africa has been very often a duplication of an American experience, but in a context tha

• K'naan:

  It was interesting to find how dominating American vision is all over the world. I think there's so

• K'naan:

  From the stage, I can reach a large audience, and you learn from being on stage how much a song rea

• K'naan:

  The only way I see the world now is through coming out of and growing up and living in Somalia. In

• K'naan:

  Somalis really are very musically sophisticated, and they're about their own thing.

• K'naan:

  I'm not about trying to get and get and get. I feel good when I get, but I kind of feel better when

• K'naan:

  The poetry I grew up on is really an intense form of poetry; it's so pure and powerful.

• K'naan:

  The problem is that rap is so often a caricature of its own image. Nobody comes to the table with t

• K'naan:

  I have moments of darkness, of anger, and moments of rage. They do creep up at the most inopportune