K’naan born Keinan Abdi Warsame is a Somali Canadian poet, rapper, singer, songwriter and instrumentalist.
Born in Somalia, K’naan spent his childhood in Mogadishu and lived there during the Somali Civil War, which began in 1991.
Keinan, means “traveler” in the Somali language. He spent the early years of his life listening to the hip-hop records sent to him from America by his father, who had left Somalia earlier. When he was 13, K’naan, his mother, and his three siblings, older brother, Liban, and younger sisters Naciimo and Sagal left their homeland and joined relatives in New York City, where they stayed briefly before moving Toronto, Canada.
K’naan began learning English, partly by listening to hip hop albums by artists like Nas and Rakim. Despite the fact that he could not yet speak the language, the young K’naan taught himself hip-hop and rap diction, copying the lyrics and style phonetically.
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