The Modern Day Socrates/Gadfly

Someone who I think may be a modern day Socrates is the artist, K’Naan. Now, I am not a very music savvy person, so I do not have much to compare him to, but he sings about current issues in a different light than the mainstream media. He is from Somalia, and many of his songs are about the turmoil that is happening in that country right now, and he also talks about the superfluousness of modern, commercialized hip-hop. He sheds light on some issues like how education is also lacking in poor neighborhoods and the Somali pirates and why they might have been led to such activities. For example, in the western media the Somali pirates were portrayed as lunatics and heartless people (which some of them were), but the media usually never got to the bottom of the real issue for the piracy, which had to do with Western political and business interests that had played in that country for many years. In this example, K’Naan tries to change the perception of what the media says is true and question the bias of the media, something that I believe Socrates would have done in his time with what the authorities said were true. K'Naan is sometimes even known as the "Dusty Foot Philosopher".

He may not look as deep into the issues as other people who could be modern day Socrateses, but he does have some similar qualities. A big quality, though, that K’Naan has but Socrates did not is that K’Naan is a performer/entertainer. When asked if he was trying to outlet his viewpoints through his music, K’Naan responded by saying “not really” and that his first priority was to make good music. He just wrote about his observations. It is clear, though, that he has made keen observations.