Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick K'NAAN Photo by Erin Baiano         CourtesyThe New York Times           SongGate continues.  The New York Times and other websites and publications have now picked up the story of K'NAAN's extreme displeasure over the Romney campaign's misuse of his rousing anthem of freedom Wavin' Flag . Earlier this week, I posted about the controversy. I am heartened that the national media continues to dig into the issues involved. What is amazing to me is the utter lack of critical listening by Mitt Romney and his campaign. Did anyone involved listen to K'NAAN's powerful lyrics? The following verses don't sound like Romneyspeak to me: Born to a throne, stronger than Rome A violent prone, poor people zone But it's my home, all I have known Where I got grown, streets we would roam Out of the darkness, I came the farthest Among the hardest survival Learn from these streets, it can be bleak Accept no defeat, ...

by Gregg Chadwick Portrait of K'NAAN I find it intriguing how an artwork over the years gathers a life of its own through changes in context and in reference to global events. The uproar over Mitt Romney's use this week of K'NAAN's infectious hit  Wavin' Flag is the latest in a long series of political events in which conservative politicians have misappropriated the music of politically progressive musicians in an effort to appear hip or part of the zeitgeist. I was in Berlin during the 2010 World Cup and K'NAAN's World Cup Theme Wavin' Flag thundered across the Tiergarten in the shadow of the angel capped Siegessäule. At the Kennedy Museum, a short walk away through the Brandenburg Gate, an exhibit of photographs by Nadav Kander illuminated President Obama and the members of his team. In the Tiergarten two years earlier in 2008, Barack Obama had given one of his most impressive campaign speeches. Nadav Kander Exhibit at the Kennedy Museum...