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Troubadour

• K'naan
• A&M/Universal
• 

Rap is as international now as Italian opera was when Canadian tenor Edward Johnson moved to Italy a century ago and began a huge career as Edoardo di Giovanni. But rap still clings to a fierce sense of locality, which is why rap fans in many countries dress, walk and even talk as if they came from the same neighbourhoods as Jay-Z and Eminem.

Kanaan Warsame became a rap fan before he could understand the English lyrics. When he began to know what those verses were about, he didn't need to fantasize about coming from a dangerous 'hood: he spent his childhood in Mogadishu during the Somali civil war.

His first album as K'naan had a complicated relationship to locality. He was an outsider trying to represent his old 'hood to those who knew it only from headlines, in a language, genre and country (Canada) that once seemed exotic. The Dusty Foot Philosopher was all about getting there from here, and being here but coming from there.

Troubadour complicates things further, by moving the action to Jamaica, where the disc was recorded. On his debut, K'naan's diction and elastic flow sometimes recalled Eminem; here, he starts out with a monotone ragga delivery over minimal sample-based music. He's still a man in transit, and sometimes he plays that position from strength.

In Fire in Freetown, his cadence and melodic contours sound Somali, though he's rapping in English over a pushed funk beat; the fire imagery is both personal and political. In the frisky 15 Minutes, he views a Western Union money transfer from both sides, as a recipient during his hungry years, and as a sender to his Somali grandmother when he's flush. I Come Prepared muses cleverly on the contrast between dodgy past and comfortable present, while People Like Me portrays three people caught in a jam (including K'naan himself) that only heaven can solve.

Dreamer runs an extended variation on text phrases from John Lennon's Imagine, and the initially taut Bang Bang does something similar with the old Sonny and Cher hit, before making a disappointing swerve into R&B lite. More trouble awaits in If Rap Gets Jealous, a ghastly dance with the zombie remains of rap-rock, with help from Metallica's Kirk Hammett. Two attempts at uplift ( Wavin' Flag and Fatima) try too hard and go on too long.

But maybe it's only natural that someone with a fluid sense of home will get lost now and then. As he says, "it ain't easy comin' outta where we from."