K'Naan: C/D S/D

Yeah, that is a terrible last line. The rest of the review, though, was pretty great. I like some of the songs Mr. Love doesn't, and don't like some he does, but we're precisely agreed on the general nature of the album, and I thought he got the characterizations of each of the cameos he mentions spot-on.

At's OK; at his best K'naan's as good as anyone. Somehow I hope BIG SUCCESS eludes him for a while yet so he's got some genuine material left for the difficult third album and it's not all about the gold cadillac he gave to his third ex-wife in six months... but I don't see how it can - "Dreamer" sounds like the monster hit of Summer '09 to me.

Troubadour persisted through the summer. Saw him live twice a few months back and he and his band really have good chemistry. They let a lot of the numbers stretch out into longer jams. Not afraid to slow them down/switch them up/totally rewrite them/turn them into poetry slams live, as the crowd and his whim dictates. His self-proclaimed debt to Fela Kuti really shone through at moments in the best way possible. Also, the band was really tight.

Anyway, revived more to ask if any of y'all have heard his new mixtape series with J. Period, The Messengers. It's a three volume tribute to Fela, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan where he remixes a bunch of their stuff with new and old verses, contextualizes his influences and throws them all together into a mesmerizing soup.

http://jperiod.com/knaan/

Thanks for the heads up on the mixtape. That sounds potentially awesome.

(More than potentially! I'd been idly jamming them volume by volume but they just released the all-in-one thing and it's really something else. about 50/50 new/old verses from K'naan but it's really next level, and something that balances out my initial unease with the pristine & sanitized feel of Troubadour)

Better than that other recent mixtape? This album is not for sale or something?

You Can't Buy This wasn't designed AS a mixtape per se...more of an odds'n'sods collection

It had the original version of Troubadour's 'Somalia' that he decided was too depressing to put on the album, an MTV Live song he improvised w/ Nelly Furtado, his website-only Kicked, Pushed freestyle and some tracks that he featured on from other people's albums (Amadou + Mariam, Mos Def, M-1).

This is a coherent listen front-to-back, much more comparable to say....Rhymefest's Man in the Mirror or other mixtapes that are designed to be heard as albums and not as disparate collections of leaks or leftovers. So yes, better, but also very different.

dude is mad boring imo

well, recognizing that we don't like earnest/conscious/earthy/etc. these days because it's not as "authentic", he's certainly not gucci. maybe it's a live thing, but he works a crowd better than pretty much anyone i've seen this year. captivating.

actually, not just a live thing. great ear for a pop hook and a constant willingness to experiment. maybe that makes him npr-rap or HEY GUYS I'M WHITE-bait, but like...he has a strong voice and the tunes are good enough that i don't give a shit. ymmv.

wow. that was...defensive of me? i dunno. i don't think i'd want to hear a whole bunch of k'naan copycats. but he does what he does well enough that he makes me care, you know?

I don't think he's boring at all, he's v v entertaining even when not entirely original.

My artist of the year: http://www.citypages.com/2009-12-23/news/aby-wolf-k-naan-and-p-o-s-top-artists-of-the-year-09/5

And he was never heard from again.