K'naan

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Keinan Abdi Warsame  better known by his stage name K'naan (/ˈkeɪnɑːn/), is a Somali Canadian poet, rapper, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist. He rose to prominence with the success of his single "Wavin' Flag", which was chosen as Coca-Cola's promotional anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Besides hip-hop, K'naan's sound is influenced by elements of Somali music, Ethio-jazz and world music. He is also involved in various philanthropic initiatives.

K'naan was born in 1978 in Mogadishu, situated in the southeastern Banaadir province of Somalia. K'naan's family was from an artistic background. His grandfather was a famous poet, and his aunt Magool was a renowned singer. His name, Keynaan (/ˈkeɪnɑːn/), means "traveller" in the Afro-Asiatic Somali language.

K'naan spent his childhood in the national capital, Mogadishu. His father, Abdi, had left earlier when he was still a boy to work as a taxi driver in New York City. K'naan's early years were idyllic and enveloped in poetry and song, with his aunt Magool often singing to him. This changed following the start of the civil war, when at the age of 12, three of his friends were shot by an older adolescent gunman. K'naan also narrowly escaped death one day at his school, when he mistook a grenade that he had found in the dirt for a potato and threw it away just before it detonated. These incidents and the general escalation in violence prompted his mother to seek a visa so that the family could rejoin his father in New York. At the age of 13, K'naan and his mother and two siblings, older brother Liban and younger sister Sagal, subsequently moved to the United States. They stayed in New York for half a year before relocating to Toronto, Canada, where K'naan's dad had settled. His family still resides there.

In his new environment, K'naan began learning English, partly by listening to hip hop albums by artists like Nas and Rakim. Despite the fact that he could not yet speak the language, he taught himself hip-hop and rap diction, copying the lyrics and style phonetically. He then also began rapping. While growing up in the Rexdale neighborhood, K'naan lost many friends to murder, suicide, prison and deportation.

K'naan was briefly married to Deqa, a pharmacy technician, with whom he has two sons, born in 2005 and 2007. They divorced before he started touring for the 2006 FIFA World Cup with Coca-Cola.

In 2005, K'naan said that he is Muslim.

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"Wavin' Flag" is a song by Somali-Canadian artist K'naan from his album Troubadour. The song was originally written for Somalia and aspirations of its people for freedom. The original single was a hit in Canada and reached #2 on the Canadian Hot 100 as the third official single from the album, after the singles "ABCs" and "Bang Bang", which were minor hits.

After a devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, a remake of the song by an ad hoc supergroup of Canadian artists, credited as Young Artists for Haiti, became a charity single in Canada, reaching #1 on the Canadian Hot 100 in its own right. The song became a truly global hit when it was chosen as Coca-Cola's promotional anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, hosted by South Africa.

This amended international version with additional lyrics reached the top ten in more than twenty different charts around the world. The English version was released as "Wavin' Flag (Celebration Mix)" by K'naan to differentiate it from the original Canadian hit or from the Canadian Haiti charity hit. The Spanish cover featuring David Bisbal became very popular. A version of the song featuring will.i.am and David Guetta was targeted for international markets. Many other bilingual and country-specific versions were released.

In 2012, K'naan published a children's book, When I Get Older: The Story Behind Wavin' Flag, about the song and its history.