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Besides hip hop, K'naan's sound is influenced by elements of Somali music and world music. K'naan was born 16 April 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. K'naan spent his childhood in Mogadishu.

His father, Abdi, 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 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 join his father in New York. When he was 13, K'naan and his mother and two siblings, older brother Liban and younger sister Sagal, moved to the United States. They stayed in New York for half a year, before relocating to Toronto , Ontario, Canada, where his family still resides.

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.