K'naan

I hurried back to the main stage expecting to have missed the start of K'naan's set, only to find that Jimmy Cliff was still dancing with ageless exuberance.  While I went to get myself some free pita chips and humus, a gigantic mass of people converged on the second stage, and I resolved to watch K'naan from a far-flung grassy knoll.  I could barely make out his white shirt when he arrived to the largest pre-performance cheers of the day.  People were excited.

Heck, I was excited, and I wouldn't have been a year before.  I first heard K'naan when Wavin' Flag came out and condemned it as an ultra-international anthem bound for a dusty corner of a FIFA game soundtrack.  But the song's popularity confounded my expectations, and once I read a bit about him I realized that he's been confounding expectations his whole life.  Rock critic Robert Christgau's review of The Dusty Foot Philosopher finally convinced me to listen at least once.  As soon as I'd finished I listened again for the rhymes, then again for the rhythms, then again for the rock.

I loved the first record, and K'naan rocks unabashedly heavy on Troubadour, with as much recourse to guitars as Somali traditional and Ethiopian jazz samples.  Onstage at Osheaga, however, I realized that some of my favourite moments on the new album would have to be left out by the four-piece band.  Chubb Rock's verse on ABCs, for instance, or Adam Levine's inimitable falsetto on Bang Bang (though the band's vocalist tried).  The only guest spot they got to sound like the album was Kirk Hammett's guitar on If Rap Gets Jealous, which left me as nonplussed live as it did on the record (I much prefer the version on Dusty Foot Philosopher).

Hip-hop backing tracks are difficult to replicate live, and I wasn't expecting the band to do so, but early in the set they seemed a little loose, especially on the slower songs.  They picked it up later with energy-filled renditions of Bang Bang and Soobax.  K'naan ended with just the chorus of Wavin' Flag, probably leaving out the verses because Jimmy Cliff had gone overtime.  Or maybe he knew the chorus was all the crowd needed. They certainly needed no encouragement, and in the end neither did I.  I think the sun even came out from behind a cloud for the finale.