K’Naan uses Twitter for Remix

by Angela

April 3, 2009

Somali-Canadian music artist K’Naan announced that he is collaborating with his fans to assemble a new version of his song “People Like Me” from their tweets on Twitter. The contest officially started on April 1st and consists of K’Naan inviting his Twitter followers to download the special instrumental version of the song, created specially for the promotion, and submit their own lyrics for the story via his Twitter. A key part of the contest is requesting fans tweet their input and include the #knaansong tag to be considered for inclusion in the final song. The deadline for submissions is May 1st.

K’Naan plans to assemble the best tweets and record the results, crediting all contributors on his official site and all other social profiles. The final track will be made available to fans via FREE download on K’Naan’s Twitter page and his official site at. Even though K’Naan’s offical website is just a Ning network site (shudder) hearing how he is using Twitter for a literal mash-up in his music is like a breath of fresh air. Just saying someone needs to tell celebs that it is GREAT to be on Twitter but how about using it productively. Just sayin’. While #knaansong is far from a top Twitter search term it is generating some buzz. It should be interesting to not only hear the final outcome of the song (love the creativity here BTW) but to also see the level of engagement on Twitter.

Category: Celeb 2.0, Trends, web 2.0 | Tags: #knaansong, K'naan, twitter, Twitter contest, Twitter song

TheJennTafur

LMAO! I am cracking up at this because I have witnessed K'naan's web presence since I discovered his music on a whim in 2007. His digital management team is pretty strong to the point that I was surprised that 1 of my blogs that I wrote about him was featured on their website. See here: http://knaanmusic.ning.com/profiles/blogs/chall...

Like you I shudder at the thought of the site as a NING too.

You know who else has a NING site? Amel Larrieux but it is not being promoted that well. I've done my part (I don't like to say that I am a part of her street team for that is a name I can't stand. I prefer appreciator of an artist work but not street team) but I can't get people to actively engage in it for they all continue to go to various Amel Larrieux sites but her main site is www.blisslife.com Amel Larrieux's NING site: http://amellarrieux.ning.com/

One thing though about K'naan is that although he is open to learning about sharing with his fans, I need him to FOLLOW me back on twitter if he wants me to participate in this journey?!?!? I hope that at least he will allow those of us on NING to participate too because I obviously am getting no love from him on twitter. He is not following some of us from NING who have actively participated on his site there. I'm not to sure of the strategy that his team is making in connecting those communities but a few of us on NING do talk on the regular. Waah. If I were not private I know he could read my tweets to him but I rather just engage on his NING page with this for this is how he knows my presence there.

That's the only drawback on this is connecting those communities from NING, Twitter, facebook, etc. It's a doozy but you do what you have to do!

Great blog as always, Angela! oxx