CD Review: K’naan – The Dusty Foot on the Road
December 19th, 2007 Filed under: Reviews - Music by admin 
CD Review -K’naan
The Dusty Foot on the Road
Wrasse
Those of you familiar with K’naan’s previous album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, you know that it received both acclaim and criticism. The majority of criticism came from other artists called out and dissed in the album (“…if I rhymed about home and got descriptive, I’d make 50 Cent look like Limp Bizkit” and citing K-OS as “a suburban negro turned hip hop hero”). Regardless, those of you who have been following the young Somali’s sound and content know that he is one to be reckoned with. He does border on the righteous, ridiculing the quintessential American ‘gangsta’, and reminding us that African civil war always trumps inner-city gangland-violence (it does). Can you blame him? This guy fired his first gun at 8, accidentally blew up half his school with an armed grenade and witness three of his friends shot to death. Mogadishu in the 1990’s was a painfully brutal era that K’naan managed to escape as a refugee to Canada at the age of 13.
He has made a notable departure from mainstream politicized hip hop and stripped it bare, reveling the reality beyond a glock in Compton and the Americanized version of Africa and showing us the dusty back alleys of Mogadishu littered with spent shells and burning tires, hostile roadblocks and bloody civilian riots. Sounds depressing, right? Not a chance. K’naan delivers his opinions in a subtle message leaving with a soft understanding of what he comes from.
If you get that then you are ready for The Dusty Foot on the Road. This is a simple and stripped down version of his some of his previous album with vivid and strong new sounds and collaborations. Recorded live from Djibouti to Edmonton, the album is largely acoustic and rooted deep in African music and culture. The sound is subliminal, dignified and deeply sentimental but just as raw as the first album. K’naan has managed to show a rounded evolution in his music, despite his short recording career, and promises to continue down his road slowly revealing to us his inner experience.
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