K'naan - Troubadour
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CD Details
Artist: K'naanEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2009-02-24
Music Label: A&M/Octone
Soundtracks:
- T.I.A. [Explicit]
- ABC's [Explicit]
- Dreamer [Explicit]
- I Come Prepared [Explicit]
- Bang Bang [Explicit]
- If Rap Gets Jealous [Explicit]
- Wavin' Flag
- Somalia [Explicit]
- America [Explicit]
- Fatima
- Fire In Freetown
- Take A Minute [Explicit]
- 15 Minutes Away
- People Like Me
Music reviews of Troubadour
Music Review: Genre Busting - Outstanding Music
Rating: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Genre busting. K'Naan isn't easy to pigeon hole. There is no best way to describe his music. It is intense story telling delivered with the right kind of music. It isn't political, but it is. It isn't rap, but it is. By the time you listen to the second or third track on this disc, it's clear, none of those things matter; this is just good solid music. This is somebody that rose up from a horrible situation and can see beauty in the life he has today.
Your sound system better come prepared to work the bass. Yes this disc rocks the subwoofer, exercises it, and rattles the house. But the mix is crystal clear; I haven't heard lyrics this clear against such a strong bass beat. K'Naan is always easy to understand. His songs tell great stories; they are worth listening to the lyrics. Thankfully the sound engineers have built a disc that delivers.
The CD does come with a Parental Advisory, and I'd have to agree, the language is not offensive. There are a couple of f bombs out front and center that a 13 year old might find funny to play loudly. But past that age, nobody will notice. The lyrics have very carefully chosen words, it's clear that K'Naan didn't toss them around lightly just to thrill 13 year old listeners. It would be a shame for his message to be lost in the strong language debate.
This is a powerful CD. It cuts across so many different genres and tastes in music. Anyone that has a very broad sense of music, no matter the genre, will be richly rewarded with this disc. I salute you K'Naan, an excellent second album. These songs will sit in the listening rotation for a long time.
TIA - The subwoofer is happy on this track. No question, a car song, certain everyone can hear the drum beat. Oddly the mix is surprisingly clean even with the heavy bass drumming - K'Naan's voice is crystal clear and his lyrics understandable, the background singers just the right volume. A little homage to vinyl at the end.
ABC's - An ode to K'Naan's homeland, Somalia. "no one fat enough for lypo" "all we got is life on the streets." All would seem like depressing lyrics, a militant song, but it's set to almost a Bosa Nova / Latin rhythm that's infectious. The rhythm adds a contrast / contradiction to the lyrics, it works and is impressive.
Dreamer - Infectious back beat. His voice sounds childlike on this track. He again talks about his country, but doesn't beat us over the head with where he came from. "I still know how to talk to a girl," puts a perfect twist in this song.
I Come Prepared - the contrast of lyrics that sound like machine guns set against a native African dance beat.
Bang Bang - We get a little Michael Jackson chorus that works extremely well. The rest of the song is a lot less subwoofer heavy, midrange solid. The story is about a crazy woman that the singer is involved with. There's references to Kevorkian,
If Rap Gets Jealous - oh this one is so good. Rap and hard solid metal guitar, it works so well. K'Naan establishes his cred, shows how tough his life was, "they shot at me since I was 2 feet tall." It's like the blues, the singer's life was really tough, your problems are small in comparison, so be happy.
Wavin' Flag - well one of the weaker tracks. It sounds a bit like the old Pepsi commercial "We Are the World." A little too much patriotism, too sweet, too saccharin; the mix is the flattest on the disc. K'Naan does have a great voice and it shines in this track.
Somalia - Driving intense bass beat backed with a choir of young singers doing lah lahs, and rhythm track that sounds almost Asian. Sounds like a recipe for disaster that in some strange way works well.
America - A really great song until Mos Def and then Chali Una sing. K'Naan starts the song in his native language; he has this smooth young voice, with beautiful midtones. The song then migrates to English, with the same beautiful sound. At almost three fourths of the song, both guest singers interrupt this rapture with deep voices devoid of any rhythm or emotion. At a certain level, they ruin the song. K'Naan may well be paying back a debt to Mos Def, having toured with him. Debt paid K'Naan, move on.
Fatima - feels like a child's song, a very simple beat with bright happy sounding lyrics.
Fire in Freetown - acoustic opening, pure simple guitar with K'Naan's clean voice. Subtly, the song builds in volume and number of instruments playing. It ends in a crescendo of intense singing. An effective song. Kudos to the sound engineer, the dynamic range is not so huge that you cannot understand the beginning because it is so quiet versus the loud ending.
Take a Minute - The message is wonderful here, be happy with today, don't complain. This track is probably the most pop music friendly of the disc. The song has a nice memorable hook.
15 Minutes Away - Social commentary on cashing checks in low income areas. They charge 15%, but you can have it right away. Oh, this one has an infectious refrain, "you can pick up today its 15 minutes away." And I love, "your boy has grown up decent, Grandma can you believe it." K'Naan goes one step further, be generous now that he's made it, give to others.
People Like Me - A soldier fighting in Iraq, a divorced educated woman that loses her job, and K'Naan's escape from Somalia. All told behind a chorus of people like me. This is a moving song. An amazing way to close an excellent disc.
Description of Troubadour
2009 release. Recorded primarily in Kingston, Jamaica where K'Naan was granted unprecedented access by his friends Stephen and Damian Marley to their father Bob Marley's original home studio at 56 Hope Road and the legendary Tuff Gong studios Troubadour is a Hip Hop album like no other. K'Naan successfully blends samples and live instrumentation for a sound that's both rooted in traditional African melodies and the classic Hip Hop tradition. Features Kirk Hammett of Metallica on the song 'If Rap Gets Jealous'.After his debut album--The Dusty Foot Philosopher--took Canada by storm and collected a 2006 Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year, the pressure was on for K?Naan?s major label follow-up. Troubadour, in a word, delivers. Lyrically, the Somali ex-pat out-rhymes the majority of his native English-speaking counterparts with a mix of violent personal history and charismatic uplift, the occasional melodic chorus, and a voice that?s fairly compared to Eminem?s but more accurately recalls the upper-register nasality of Pharcyde?s Booty Brown. Pop-leaning cuts like ?Dreamers? and ?15 Minutes Away? duck in and out of instrumentals that borrow from Afrobeat (?Fire in Freetown?), a world/soul sound that hits its apex in the gorgeous ?Wavin? Flag,? and hip-hop?s best use yet of a Bob Marley sample (opener ?T.I.A.?). Recorded at Marley?s legendary Tuff Gong studio in Jamaica, the album gets a heavy dose of collaborative energy from such diverse contributors as Mos Def, Chubb Rock, Maroon 5?s Adam Levine (?Bang Bang?), and Metallica?s Kirk Hammett (?If Rap Gets Jealous?). In a year that has already seen an early girth of really strong rap releases that eschew the superficial violence, misogyny, and inanity of most radio fare, Troubadour stands as a front-runner for Hip-Hop Album of the Year. --Jason Kirk
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