Hella Stella

I tend to have a very emotional reaction to good music, which includes getting shivers and shakes, welling up with tears, laughing out loud, and growling at people who interrupt my listening experience.*

Since I bought the new K'Naan album, it's been hard to reign in myself in. I like him not only because he makes great music, but also because his past is so compelling. He came to Canada as a Somalian refugee, and he sings about his life in Mogadishu, trying to get through the war and gangs to make it out to the other side. He lost so many friends and family members along the way, and his music is full of their stories. So many of the kids I grew up with were refugees from Somalia, and it's amazing to finally understand what they were coming from when they showed up in droves at my public school. All I was told is that they were escaping a war, but I didn't really understand what that meant at the time.

I also like that K'Naan criticizes 'gangsta' rappers who glorify guns and violence. He was a seven-year-old with a machine gun; he knows there's nothing glorious about it. He is a prime example of everything I love about Canadian hip hop - he's truly unique and humble, and I respect him completely for it. Now I just have to see him live.

I guess I'm telling you all this so that if you see me wandering along with my headphones on bawling my eyes out, you know I'm just listening to the new K'Naan album. It's that good.

So!

It's been a pretty stressful week at work, and I'm very much looking forward to the weekend. There seems to be no end of fun things to do lately, and I'm starting to feel like I could handle crawling out of hibernation for a bit. The weather forecast sounds very... WET. It can't be spring already, can it? It's only March. There's no way.

Also, my rain boots don't fit.

This could get messy.


*My BH discovered this the hard way during our trip to Toronto. When I'm at our favourite CD store, I go straight to the listening booths and zone out for about an hour. It's my ritual. My BH, however, has no interest in the listening booths and kept coming over to chat while I was listening. It made me twitchy, and I had to explain later that I need silence when I am at the booths OR I GO CRAZY and start foaming at the mouth.