53 Quotes by K'naan

I don't feel political most of the time. Sometimes I'm placed in positions because no one else will go there.

I have moments of darkness, of anger, and moments of rage. They do creep up at the most inopportune times. Not to recognize that in my music would give people a sense of sainthood that I don't necessarily have or even want to have.

It's not really that I'm interested in filmmaking. I'm interested in the instrument of it, you know.

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.

My question about my art and my music has always been, 'Am I good, or am I good because?' I'm not the artist who wants to have the 'because' attached.

The problem is that rap is so often a caricature of its own image. Nobody comes to the table with the seriousness of the effect that it can have; nobody is prepared for that.

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.

From the stage, I can reach a large audience, and you learn from being on stage how much a song reaches, what extent of the crowd a song can reach. I write in a way that can reach most of the audience, but I also wanted to have truly intimate moments as well, many intimate moments, more so than the big moments.

It's not longer 'Look what I can do, I can do it better then you.' It's just I am.