K'naan Quotes

I just feel as though it's become a situation where people have manifested this caricature of who I am, and they act as if there's no real person inside of it.

The mystified idea I had of Israel - the demonization of Israel - it just wasn't true.

People look at me, and I dress a little unusually and they think, 'Oh you must be from California.' Of course, people in California think, 'Oh you must be from from Mars,' so, you know, your next-door neighbour is not necessarily the person that you are going to make a connection with.

Stereotypes and perceptions have their real effects.

Not long ago, every time I did a picture shoot for a magazine, the photographer would ask me to show up wearing jeans and cowboy boots. They seemed to think I was a hillbilly. Now it's different. Now they're not quite sure what to make of me. And I show up wearing whatever I want.

I'm kind of used to people trying to define me or, you know, lying about me.

I think people underestimate because I'm the rap guy, I'm a crazy guy, screaming all the time. But that doesn't mean that I'm not intelligent.

When 'Jelly's' went out on tour, no one really wanted it. It was undersold. And I knew if I gave 'Noise' to someone else, they would sell it as 'Stomp' with little dancing black boys.

I have blonde hair and blue eyes, and whenever I tell people I'm Greek, they don't believe me.

There are a million misconceptions about me but the greatest is probably that people think I'm the king of disco. I love disco but it is only one part of me.

I never tried to emulate that New York rap style. What I do is a quasi rap. It's a honky rap, not a black rap. I find it puzzling that so many people have assumed I'm black.

I got a lot of crap for being named SZA but not being affiliated with Wu-Tang, and being a girl.

It's hard being a white rapper sometimes! When that happens you just need to battle through.

We culture. Rap is the new rock 'n roll. We the rockstars. It's been like that for a minute, Hedi Slimane!

I was like, 'I can't do grime. That's for kids.' - I was 20 at the time, and I thought I was a gangsta, a proper rude boy.

People have a certain mindset about me, they know me to be a very serious person as I don't party much nor am I overtly active on social media but there is more to me than what is imbibed in their minds.

People think hip-hop is evil, but it's sometimes the people making hip-hop that are evil. The genre isn't wicked, but the people in it are.

We are presented with a unique situation in the black community in that we have embraced the beauty of hip hop, the real rawness of it, the real fun of it, but we also have to address the damage it has done. We have to look at what it's done to our black girls, especially when it comes to domestic violence.

I think a lot of people can come across looking messier than they are, but that's what reality TV is unfortunately.

A lot of the time, people think rappers just live inside this bubble. No, the reality is there is conversation that happens. It's not this one-dimensional thing. There's reality that takes place.

I'd like to think that maybe the average person is rational, and they realise that I'm not this crazy monster that, at times, I've been perceived to be.

People think we're always dark and gloomy, and we're not.

Whether you like him or not, hip hop needs Drake.

I don't have a very positive attitude towards rappers.

I really don't understand because I love opera, because I respect the Michelangelos and da Vincis, that it should be shocking because I am a wrestler. Because I am a wrestler does it mean that I am some kind of a robot who only knows to go into the squared circle and pound on somebody?