K'naan has a
nice piece in the New York Times on Sunday about an issue we've talked about all quarter- how to keep commercial success from wrecking the art underlying it. Before he started to record his third album, he says, the label called him to a brunch to talk about what he needed to do to stay on top:
And for the first time, I felt the affliction of success. When I walked
away from the table, there were bruises on the unheard lyrics of my
yet-to-be-born songs. A question had raised its hand in the quiet of my
soul: What do you do after success? What must you do to keep it?
If this was censorship, I thought, it was a new kind — one I had to do
to myself. The label wasn’t telling me what to do. No, it was just
giving me choices and information, about my audience — 15-year-old
American girls, mostly, who knew little of Somalia. How much better to
sing them songs about Americans.
It goes on from there, with a pretty tough, good ending.
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