Giving his flowers: Ka was underappreciated in life, will he be in death?
By looking at the late New York rapper’s lyrics, we can draw some conclusions about his time on earth
Photo by BARRY BRECHEISEN
The internet is an odd place, especially when you have not quite made it. The disparity between have-beens and ones who have made it is at best, very blurry. There are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people each year who try and “make it.” For the most part, they never succeed. Those who do “make it” sometimes are never satiated with their progress and newfound celebrity. Some are deemed “micro-celebrities” and are relegated to their closed-off corners of the web — only to decay and never achieve their true potential. However, some don’t even seem to want to achieve this coveted success. Some just want to do what they love: make art. Those who do this, are sadly, never truly appreciated for their work in their lifetime.
On Oct. 12, 2024, Kaseem “Ka” Ryan died at age 52.
It’s hard, as a writer, to pinpoint the exact feelings of people who are no longer with us. One can speculate as to what people’s motivations could have been, but doing so is ultimately fruitless. When people die, they are gone. There is no sensible way to contact the dead. Despite this, by looking at what people have said while they are alive, we can maybe come up with a compromise. Would Ka have wanted his flowers after his death? What did he think of the concept of fame? The only way we can corroborate facts regarding these questions is to do what all good music journalists do and read between the lines.
Sometimes I cry when I listen to Ka’s 2016 magnum opus, “Honor Killed the Samurai.” I have listened to that project more than a dozen times since I became conscious of Ka’s music in 2020, yet the more I listen to it, the more I do not want to. Listening in on “Honor Killed the Samurai” feels intrusive. It feels too intimate of a record to take in. Nevertheless, I still listen to it. The first track on the record, “Conflicted,” takes a look at the dichotomy between doing what is right and doing what you need to live in this world. [“Mommy told me, ‘Be a good boy/Need you alive, please survive, you my hood joy’ (Please)/Pops told me, ‘Stay strapped, son’ (Strapped)/’You need the shotty, be a body or catch one’ (Catch one)”] … Ka raps on “Conflicted.” This primarily sets the tone for “Honor Killed the Samurai,” Ka lives in a confusing world, one where you have to choose between your morals and your gut. This sense of confusion is present on the whole record, even past it, there are traces of this moral code on other Ka albums.
[“I wish we ain't have to live like this/I wish we ain't have to live like this/I wish”] … Ka raps on “I Wish (Death Poem).”
“Orpheus vs. the Sirens” by Hermit and the Recluse — which is composed of Ka and producer Animoss — tackles similar themes to “Honor Killed the Samurai.” Lots of lyrics, bars and segments dedicated to morals and what happens if you subvert them. Clever wordplay is interspersed with mythological-themed lyrical musings, it creates a mystique that clouds the album, but also elucidates its message. Take the second track on “Orpheus vs. the Sirens,” “Fate.”
[“They all dippin' on the road to riches, so my lane sparse/Whole story self-incriminating, here's the main parts/Far as opponents, our darkest moments became hearts/Dealt blackjacks over twenty-one, wasn't playin' cards,”] … Ka raps on “Fate.”
2020’s “Descendants of Cain” continues on with Ka’s focus on death and violence, one of the key tracks of the record is “Unto the Dust,” where Ka mixes biblical references, as well as metaphors about police brutality and systematic oppression in order to try and motivate whoever listens to break the cycle of violence — and ultimately death.
[I'm from the seventies, men in Lees had us boxin' young/I don't leverage hate, I educate, you better ask around (You better ask around)/I'm taskin' babes passin' grades, what you passin' down?/Mm,”] Ka raps on the last verse of “Unto the Dust.”
Ka’s last and final album, 2024’s “The Thief Next to Jesus,” continues these theological raps even further, by depicting a shadowing figure being crucified with a storm of nails hurled at them. The artwork seems Pollack-esque, with the figure seeming more like random, sporadic splotches of paint, rather than a concerted effort to craft an overt parallel. Ka’s skilled lyricism and hushed delivery sound even more inevitable on this record, with some of his best production in his lifetime. The themes on the record are purposely blasphemous, not to God, but to hip-hop’s current state-of-being — “Bread Wine Body Blood” takes shots at every corner of rap culture. Ka’s lyrics do not come off as explicitly “holier-than-thou,” but rather as someone who has lived a long and storied life. “The Thief Next to Jesus” acts as a nice last hurrah for Ka. The vocal snippets found at the beginnings and ends of almost every track on the record, construct a narrative of Black-excellence in spite of societal pressures from almost every facet.
Ka never wanted to be famous, and frankly as well as luckily, he never got there. Caught between the fringes and crevices of underground east-coast rap, Ka served as one of hip-hop’s wisemen. He carried decades of wisdom and knowledge, all of which he tried to translate into the vehicle of our time, music.
It has been two months since Ka has died, two months since I started writing this article. An article that is not nearly as comprehensive and all-encompassing as I thought it would be, however, that’s fine by me. Things cannot be perfect in this world, because we live in an imperfect one. In a way, Ka understood this: he took his craft seriously. Although he was never fully recognized for his talents, part of me thinks — and truly believes — that he never wanted to be fully rewarded with success. If he could only inspire one person with his wise wordsmithing, that might have just been enough for him.