Track Listing

1. Wash It Down
2. Soobax
3. What's Hardcore?
4. My Old Home
5. Kids (Interlude)
6. I Was Stabbed By Satan
7. A Ghetto So Ruff (Interlude)
8. Smile
9. Rap Gets Jealous
10. The Dusty Foot Philosopher
11. Strugglin'
12. In The Beginning
13. Hoobaale
14. The African Way
15. Voices In My Head
16. Boxing My Shadow
17. The Dusty Foot Philosopher
18. Until Tha Lion Learns To Speak

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27385 in Music
• Released on: 2006-03-27
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Originality in abundance
Magnificent debut album by K’Naan, a young rapper originally from Somalia and now based in Canada. An album cram full of surprises, huge variety of styles but still the album has a thematic feel to it. World music backdrop to many of the tracks and some astonishing and surprising rappers rhymes along the way. The lyrics are all in English and the vocals have a refreshing clarity that allows you to appreciate the creativity and sheer 'unusualness' of some of the couplets.....great production job. This guy is worldly wise beyond his years and makes many references to his early years growing up in Mogadishu apparently surrounded by war and violence. Thoroughly recommended.....best thing I have heard this year so far.

Great new conscious rapper
Grandson of one of Somalia's most famous poets, fresh from performing at Live 8 and with the likes of Mos Def and Damian Marley and after receiving a standing ovation for a politically-charged poem at the UN's 50th anniversary celebration, K'Naan doesn't disappoint in his debut album. He eschews the mindless violence and bragging common in mainstream rap today, favouring instead thought-provoking, poetic lyrics. Through its focus on Africa, and especially Somalia and the civil war there, the album puts a lot of modern rap in perspective: "If I rhymed about home and got descriptive, I'd make 50 Cent look like Limp Bizkit." The same focus allows K'Naan to plead with the Somalian warlords to leave his country on the track "Soobax", which means "come out" and the hidden track "Blues for the Horn" is an emotional song about the Horn of Africa. The album is named in honour of one of K'Naan's murdered friends. He was a poor African, with dusty feet, but he lived with dignity and thought about the world as if he were extremely well educated, despite not having the educational opportunities we have in the West. Thoroughly recommended and one of the best albums I've got.

this is poetry
He has 'beef' with the warlords in somalia, he stands up, he is a philosopher and a very moving rapper. And he wears a very nice headband. I was blown away by this album, it hit me totally unexpectedly. I expected it to be good, but this is something else, not only conscious but awake and dreaming at the same time. To think that he learned the words of US rappers phonetically while a kid in war torn somalia, not even understanding english at the time speaks volumes. He is a one off, a jewel shining in mud.