by Clayton Ruley

The second LP that has put K'naan on the map.

The artist known as K’naan is from war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia but found a home in Toronto, Canada after a stay in New York City. He gives the people his second studio album, Troubadour on A&M/Octone Records. This is his second LP but his first that’s got a major push. He’s been seen as tying together the consciousness of Bob Marley with the sound of an Eminem. That’s lofty praise but this LP seems to validate some of what many have seen. Let us get right to a review of the LP.

Full of drums and festival sounds K’naan starts the LP off with “T.I.A.” which stands for This is Africa. In the song K’naan talks about the streets being tricky and the need for good music these days. I hear that!

The next cut called “ABCs” features Chubb Rock and uses a sample from “Treat ‘Em Right” as K’naan talks about growing up in Africa and what’s there and not there. He also speaks on self-taught life education being more prevalent in his home than school education. Chubb Rock talks about his legacy in the rap game and not using the B and N words.

“Dreamer” is one of the first songs people know from this new artist and in it K’naan talks about life in the city and having dreams and working towards them. The song was so successful it was used during the 2009 NFL Draft.

Reggae and rap meet up as Damien Marley joins K’naan on “I Come Prepared”, a cut about always being ready for a challenge. Both artists bring unique skills to music and have the ability to sing and rap. Marley speaks about traveling around the world and carrying the Marley name with him. K’naan toured with Marley and Nas during parts of their Distant Relatives concert series.

“Bang Bang” is an upbeat song about a female who shot him with love and lust. The bridge on the song is real catchy and I can hear this song being on the way from club. K’naan uses some elements of Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By” as well on this track.

On “If Rap Gets Jealous”, K’naan talks about being Africa’s rap Bruce Lee and he tries to prove why on a hard rock track which is a good switch up from the first few songs. He talks about saving the money he would have paid Kanye for a beat and sending it back to family in Africa. That’s some real life stuff! The is a good guitar solo towards the end as well.

“Wavin’ Flag” is a rallying song as he talks about fighting for freedom and growing up in an empoverished area and having hope for the future because he’s doing something about his situation.

K’naan talks about being in war areas and people trying to control him but him refusing. “Somalia” is another song you’d think about when you think of Africa and for more than the title but the instruments used but the song has a hip hop beat in the backdrop. K’Naan talks about learning english to give himself a chance to express himself to another avenue to express himself and other different situations he has seen and partcipated in.

Other songs I really like are “Fire In Freetown”, a song with a folk feel to it, “America” where K’naan raps in his native tongue and “15 Minutes Away”, a song about waiting about for some money on money transfer and how good it feels to get. The last cut is “People Like Me” is another personal song in which he tells about people he knows and you should too.

One a side note, K’naan has the three songs being used by EA Sports with “ABCs” is used in the video game Madden 09′ by EA Sports, while the aforementioned “Dreamer” being used in promotions for the NFL Draft on NFL.com. Lastly “I Come Prepared” is used in the video game Fight Night Round 4, also by EA Sports.

Overall a very good debut on his new label from K’naan, I’ll give it 3.5 GeoGlobes.