Rest in Power Ka
Art is work. And should be celebrated as such. Not in the capitalist sense to extract profit, but an acknowledgement that creation doesn’t arrive fully formed, springing like Athena from Zeus’ head. When the shoe hits the dancefloor, the pen meets the page, the brush on the canvas, the mouth to the mic, that is work. The art is earned. A rare few can be found at the pinnacle; masters whose work is flawless on the surface and the effort, shown through seeming effortlessness, is revealed later.
For rap, there’s no one who inhabited craft like Ka. The Brownsville based rapper, born Kaseem Ryan, passed this week. He was a poet of unparalleled talent born from constant, unerring focus on craft and improvement.
Ka started his rap career in the ‘90s but his first group Natural Elements drifted into obscurity and his second, Nightbreed, closed when his best friend and rapping partner Kev died. So he went to work, as a first responder during 9/11 then becoming a fire captain in Brooklyn. But rap never left him. When Wu Tang Clan’s GZA invited him on to drop a guest verse on 2008’s Pro Tools it was like a ghost stepping out of the shadows. Ka’s relaxed, nearly deadpan delivery gave a thudding gravitas to everything he said. You’d have to lean into the headphones to pick up every internal rhyme, every scattered reference, waiting with bated breath. There was no passive listening with Ka. From 2012’s Grief Pedigree to this year’s The Thief Next to Jesus, Ka did not release a single album beneath “great.” I could fill the rest of this essay with genius lines, with their triple, quadruple, infinite meanings.
“My birthright like a Sumerian
Made it out the belly with my cut like a cesarean”
“I’ma keep the faith
Streets be lace, it’s a decent pace for a steeplechase
Evil days the most peligro ways to reach a safe.”
Ka wasn’t an artist of contradictions, but of finely tuned balance. He was fiercely independent with a menagerie of trusted friends who he welcomed into his albums. He was well traveled, worldly, and an anchor to his home of Brownsville where he was born, raised and died. He could deliver the most chilling verse about the utility of boxcutters on a subway train then coo a hymn to his family. Firefighter by day, rapper by night.
His voice was singular. The prophetic booming of billy woods or Roc Marciano’s snub-nosed sermons were the best references, but neither worked in the understated, yet deeply moving, vocal quality Ka achieved. It was best exemplified by single “Cold Facts” off Grief Pedigree. There was no need to shout, he simply said what he meant, and crafted what is, occasionally, the single best rap song of the 2010s.
“Fuck them cops and swats with night vision
Give me three days, we’ll celebrate like Christ’s risen
Grew up with good-spirited goons;
Now I only see ‘em in tombs or in visiting rooms”
Ka’s voice delivered a deft, subtle touch to eternal struggle. His production work did much the same. He stripped and lathed Morricone arrangements until the majesty and bombast was gone, leaving only pulsating tension.
After Grief Pedigree, Ka dove into the realms of mythology and religion. Orpheus vs. the Sirens recast the subway stops of ‘80s New York as the Labyrinth, the sirens every vice that the city could provide. Honor Killed the Samurai found Ka’s metaphors at their most heartbreaking, questioning if the act of survival destroys any semblance of honor. Strangest, and most compelling, was Days with Dr. Yen Lo where Ka and producer Preservation teamed up to retell The Manchurian Candidate. But they splattered the story with unreliable narrators, fourth wall breaks, and psychedelic surrealism. It was as thrilling as it was unnerving.
In a decade and some change, Ka released 11 albums, sterling in quantity and quality. This was only an option because Ka did not play industry games. He shipped physical copies of his records himself. He shunned PR but was happy to answer fan questions. His new albums would only be up on streaming a month after their proper release. Ka let those who bought direct marinate in his world before he let anyone else in.
Despite calling his albums “purges” where emotions were pent up until they begged for release, he viewed every new piece of art as a journey of self-improvement. “Every album I’m trying to learn,” he said in an interview with Red Bull Music Academy. “I wasn’t really good in school. So now this is my opportunity to become a smarter man. So every album... I can study, I can learn.”
Ka was a Christian, but separated personal relationship with God from the trappings of the faith itself, using Biblical tales as analogues to police brutality, fiendish racism and the strength of family. In his biblical exploration Descendants of Cain, he closed the album with “I Love (Mimi, Moms, Kev)” dedicating a verse to three pieces of his heart: His wife, Mimi Valdez, his mom, and his former rapping partner Kev.
“Picked me up when I was at my lowest/ Used to hardly could spell, now I’m held with the poets,”
he begins in dedication to Mimi. “I Love (Mimi, Moms, Kev)” is a song that always makes me tear up, but not from sorrow. It is simply too beautiful, too pure to not ripple through the soul. I remember exactly where I was when I first heard it, walking through a dark street at night, captivated by the storm that Descendants of Cain conjured. “I Love” wasn’t a sudden burst of light, Ka was far too nocturnal for that. It was like a squall suddenly breaking, clouds parting and revealing moonlight over a calming sea. If the razorwire tension of “Cold Facts” was the best of the ‘10s, the ray of warmth in “I Love” might be the best song of the ‘20s, rap or otherwise.
Ka can’t be replicated. But his dedication to his independence, his loathing for industry bullshit, his poet’s soul are all things that should inspire all of us, artists or otherwise. “The world will not empower you to think you can have a second act. The messaging for the world is either; you did that thing and you succeed or you failed. And if you failed you’re a loser and you should never do it again.” said rapper Open Mike Eagle in his eulogy for Ka. Ka proved the world wrong. He made his best music in his 40s and 50s, his existence a boon for all late bloomers, proof that artistry does not fade with time, if well sharpened. It was all work, and he took pride in it, and encouraged every listener to find joy in what they created. About a month ago, Ka released what would be his last album. The Thief Next to Jesus. I haven’t listened to it yet. I thought he had more time.