Minnesota winters aren't so bad in the view of Somalian hip-hop star K'Naan. "I remember it being like 40-below or something crazy like that," the rapper and activist recalled of the nine months he spent in the Twin Cities a decade ago, a time he called "pretty monumental in shaping me."

"But winter is really a breeze when you think about those less fortunate than yourself," added K'Naan, who returns Monday to First Avenue for the closing night of the Twin Cities Pan African Festival. "We Somalians compare winter to other scenarios we could be stuck in."

Now based in Toronto -- when he's not recording with the Marleys in Jamaica or Mos Def in Los Angeles -- K'Naan has brought this kind of reality-check perspective to hip-hop. When he was 11 and living in Mogadishu, he saw two friends gunned down. At 13, his family fled Somalia on the last commercial flight out as civil war intensified in 1991. Even now at age 30, with yet more unrest plaguing his homeland, he is haunted by the violence. So it should have been no surprise when K'Naan mocked American thug rappers in "What's Hardcore?," a 2006 track with such lines as: "If I rhymed about home and got descriptive/ I'd make 50 Cent look like Limp Bizkit."

"America has places like New Orleans with real struggles, and I respect those struggles," K'Naan said. "But I'm talking about Mogadishu. It's a different level.

"That song is me talking to rappers who glorify their 'hood like it's the end of the world. Somalians are happy if we even get to live in their 'hood. Their 'hood is our salvation."

K'Naan said it's difficult to discuss Somalia's most recent bout of bloodshed (from different factions seeking control), but he did criticize American media for ignoring it. He also stated that he favors withdrawal of Ethiopian troops.

"Somalians are very divided on that issue," he said. "As an artist who wants to speak for all the people, it's hard to say anything or to take a side. Even my mother would like for me to not talk about it."

He paused, then added, "But, of course, I do."