ChordStrike: Best Music of March, 2009: Troubadour by K'Naan

Best Music of March, 2009: Troubadour by K'Naan

by Jason Kirk on February 26, 2009

It’s already been a really strong year for hip-hop releases. Cases in point:

1. January 20: Mr. Lif drops "Obama," on inauguration day, no less. The song offers a refreshing dose of restraint to temper the nearly dogmatic mania running rampant for the man these days.

2. January 27: Zion I’s The Takeover is an instant classic. Producer Amp Live rips jazz, funk, gospel, big band, and more, and emcee Zumbi (just) keep pace.

3. February 3: P.O.S. finally lives up to his potential with the aptly named Never Better. Besides the killer raps and the rough instrumental bravado (compliments of Doomtree), the album also comes in one of the best CD packages to come out in a while, a sort of artistic cross between Radiohead’s In Rainbows, the Roots’ Phrenology, and Funkstörung’s Disconnected.

4. February 10: Beastie Boys release the 20th Anniversary Edition of Paul’s Boutique. ‘Nuff said? Not quite. Lest you think you've heard it before, this edition includes a nine-track "B-Boy Bouillabaisse," not to mention a long-overdue remastering that'll appeal to more than just stick-in-the-mud audiophiles.

5. February 17: N.A.S.A.’s Spirit of Apollo boasts guest spots from an absolute A-list of contributors, from David Byrne and Kanye West to Gift of Gab and Karen O. Ever wondered what Kool Keith and Tom Waits sound like together? Now you know.

The pick of the pack, though, is K’Naan's Troubadour. 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.