If only he would stop rhyming so much about the turbulence of his native Somalia and start catering to radio station program directors and the tastes of American teenagers, he could be huge, the record company suggested. They said, in essence, we have this stale little formula that makes everything sound the same, and all you have do is simply change everything that has made you successful so far. Whaddya say?

K’naan wrote that he gave in, going so far as to Westernize the names in his songs and work with “A-list producers” in an attempt to expand his audience before coming to the conclusion that “packaging me as an idolized star to the pop market in America cannot work.”

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