Ka Was the Visionary Soul of Underground New York Hip-Hop

Kaseem “Ka” Ryan, who passed away on October 12 at the age of 52, was a one-of-one hip-hop visionary who left a legacy as brilliantly idiosyncratic as any the genre has produced. He emerged as a fiercely evocative artist in a moment when a new wave of voices revitalized street rap, shearing the style from its mid-Nineties thug origins while avoiding any pretense of commercial viability, and girding it with dusty, deeply sourced sample loops. Ka’s 2012 album, Grief Pedigree, is widely cited alongside Roc Marciano’s 2010 album Marcberg as a blueprint for an entire subculture of vocalists spitting world-weary, metaphorical verses about the hustle game, its triumphs and its setbacks. (The late Prodigy’s 2007 collaboration with The Alchemist, Return of the Mack; as well as the late Sean Price’s 2005 album Monkey Bars deserve mention as important precedents.) Boldy James, Westside Gunn, Conway the Machine, Benny the Butcher, Rome Streetz, Tha God Fahim…all built on, added twists to, and created new lanes out of the cultural mood that Ka captured.

Yet while Ka was representative of a style, he was also unique, as so many fans who flocked to social media to express their heartbreak and appreciation for him said. With 2013’s The Night’s Gambit, the Brownsville, Brooklyn rapper-producer reduced his sound to wisps of melody and spare, minimal percussion. The effect made his hushed, crackly voice feel like a wood-carving tool shaving images into sepulchral mists. His friend Roc Marciano – the two frequently appeared on each other’s work and even promised a joint album that has yet to see light – crafted a similarly “drumless” sound with his 2012 high watermark, Reloaded. But while Roc filled his tracks with bleakly vivid musings of a criminal mastermind, KA infused his music with memories of previous exploits, past and present friends, regrets over paths he had chosen, and hope for the life he could still lead. It felt like “grown-man rap” of an exemplary sort, not concerned with the meanderings of middle-age complacency, but the reckoning that comes after years of human survival. He reached uncommon depths of personal insight. “Me and Roc always said when Ka rapped it was like he was delivering his words from the top of a mountain off a stone tablet,” wrote The Alchemist on X.

Like many of his peers in this milieu, Ka was once an also-ran in the hypercompetitive rap industry. He came of age in the Eighties crack era, as he told Red Bull Music Academy in 2016: “Put like this, my cousins were selling drugs, my aunt was on drugs, my cousin was selling drugs, his sister was on drugs, his brother was on drugs.” He sold drugs, too, while filling notebooks with his rhymes, inspired by the likes of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s “The Message.” By the Nineties, he was making demos and linking up with Natural Elements, a sprawling collective of MCs who briefly made noise in the New York underground. When a subsequent project called Nightbreed faltered – despite their standout 1998 12-inch single, “2 Roads Out the Ghetto” – Ka joined the New York Fire Department, eventually rising to a rank of captain. He was one of the first responders during the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Ka’s self-released 2008 CD, Iron Works, coincided with the underground’s shift from an “independent as fuck” protest to a working-class demimonde. Some had never quite cracked the mainstream, despite modest acclaim from rap heads and college-radio spins. Others had navigated major-label politics, with mixed success, and could still command a substantial audience. GZA from Wu-Tang Clan, years removed from his 1995 platinum-certified classic Liquid Swords, belonged in the latter category. After hearing Iron Works, he invited Ka (as well as Roc Marciano) to cameo on 2008’s Pro Tools, giving the rapper a well-earned moment of validation.

As Ka formed a discography during the last decade or so of his life, he wrapped his projects in overarching concepts: The Night’s Gambit and chess metaphors, 2015’s Days with Dr. Yen Lo’s (made with producer Preservation) unsettled, possibly brainwashed thoughts a la The Manchurian Candidate; and Japanese codes of integrity in 2016’s Honor Killed the Samurai. “Of [hip-hop], I’m a samurai. I’m holding on to something that’s not treasured anymore: lyrics,” KA told Rolling Stone. 

By 2018’s Orpheus and the Sirens – a collaboration with producer Animoss as Hermit and the Recluse – and 2020’s Descendants of Cain, Ka enjoyed a reputation akin to a Michelin-starred chef. Each new release felt like a gift of richly appointed beauty. “It’s obviously for a more mature audience,” he told Passion of the Weiss in 2015. “If you’re listening half-heartedly, you gonna miss a lot of things. I don’t want you to sit down every time you listen to a Ka record. But if you want to really absorb what I’m saying, you may have to take some time.”

The “lyricism” trope has sometimes been used by fans and artists alike to belittle less-verbose “mumble rappers” who focus on melody, flows, and hooks. Indeed, Ka’s work, in all its conceptual and thematic intensity, could feel like a generational bulwark against rap’s perceived aesthetic decline. But this kind of thinking pays little tribute to an artist whose legacy stands completely on its own, whether in comparison to the Nineties “golden era” or now, when rap feels too complex and diffuse for any one person to grasp.

Fiercely self-contained, Ka sold vinyl and CDs on his website and through select stores across the U.S. and Europe. He filmed YouTube videos to promote album tracks; for Grief Pedigree, he made a video for every cut. He rarely performed concerts, a format that he came to believe was a poor fit for his contemplative raps. Eventually, he didn’t bother shipping out physical product, either. He simply dropped an album, made it a digital exclusive for several days before posting it on streaming services, then held one-day-only pop-up shops in New York to move units and shake hands with supporters. That’s how hundreds of fans, many flying in from out-of-state, showed up at 104 Charlton Street in Manhattan’s Hudson Square on September 28, and lined up in the rain for hours to press flesh with perhaps the finest rap craftsman of his era. It’s unlikely they knew it would be his last public appearance.

Ironically, Ka’s final album, The Thief Next to Jesus, is cloaked in spiritual meditations. He loops up sundry gospel calls and shouts as he navigates a troubled relationship with organized religion and how God sustains him. “When you give much, much is received/If you ain’t livin’ life in crisis, I don’t trust your lead,” he raps on “Tested Testimony,” noting the power of community and how “if one make it, we all do.” And for someone celebrated for his haunting power, “Bread Wine Body Blood” betrays a moment of humor – “Don’t get it twist, I like a pretty miss with a fast gat” – as he warns today’s youth not to “be the weapon they use to harm you.” Heard now, every song feels like an urgent message from someone whose gifts were all too finite.