Aged 46, Keinan Abdi Warsame, his real name, is accused of sexual assault on a woman in her twenties on the sidelines of a music festival in the summer of 2010.
Somali-Canadian rapper K’naan, whose flagship title Wavin’Flag became the anthem of the Football World Cup in 2010, was charged Thursday, September 26 in Quebec with sexual assault, according to Canadian media.
The 46-year-old rapper, whose real name is Keinan Abdi Warsame, is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in her twenties in July 2010, while he was in Quebec City for a music festival. . His lawyers pleaded not guilty in his absence on Thursday, according to local media. The next hearing will take place on April 20.
According to the indictment, the sexual assault occurred between July 16 and 17, 2010. K’naan was then the opening act for the Black Eyed Peas concert on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec. The complainant was around twenty years old at the time of the incident.
Born in 1978 in Mogadishu, the rapper comes from a large family of artists: his grandfather, Mohamed Hagi, was Somalia’s most famous poet and his aunt, Magool, a renowned singer. Now 46 years old, K’Naan left his country at the age of 13 to escape the war. With his mother and brothers and sisters, he left Mogadishu by plane, just before the airport closed, for New York then Toronto in Canada where he settled permanently.
His criticism of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1999 earned him the attention of Senegalese star Youssou N’Dour, who invited him to participate in an album, thus launching his musical career. . After his football anthem, K’naan took a long break but returned in 2023. In early September, he made his directorial debut with Mother Motherpresented at the Toronto International Film Festival.
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