Ka: The lone poet of Brownsville underground rap scene
Honoring the life and legacy of Kaseem Ryan, FDNY Captain and revered underground hip-hop legend.
Committed rhymes, if you give it time, much is learned Firm dense, but earn strength with a young stalk
– Conflicted
On October 12, 2024, it was announced that Kaseem Ryan had passed away. As a New York Fire Department Captain and a first responder on 9/11, Kaseem undeniably impacted his community. However, what differentiates Kaseem from his peers is that he also cemented his hip-hop legacy through his work as the rapper and producer, Ka.
Ka is one of the most unique rappers I have ever listened to, with a style invoking spoken word poetry instead of the hip-hop that dominates the charts. Ka’s production is minimal, using drums sparingly and instead relying on Ka’s gruff voice, which sets the rhythm of tales from his life. Ka’s voice is monotone, betraying no emotion that could glorify or vilify the life he lived. Ka is not a swaggering mafioso full of pride, but neither is he a powerless victim of circumstance. For Ka, the past is in the past. The short story is that he survived and, as he tells his tales, the dedicated listeners can inherit some of the wisdom he reluctantly earned.
Ka never wasted a word in his life. Each line interweaves his stories of growing up in the grim streets of Brownsville, a New York neighbourhood with one of the highest crime rates in the country, with his love of literature and culture. His are not the type of songs you can lightly play in the background as you work, doing so would insult the message that Ka buries into every verse he writes. Instead, his music must be treated with care by looking through lyrics and searching for references to understand how it interplays with the themes of the album. I remember my first time listening to his 2020 album Descendants of Cain and spending hours researching every single line. I noted how Ka relates his upbringing in Brownsville to the Biblical story of Cain, who killed his brother Abel in a fit of rage and was eternally damned for this sin. Ka sees this trend repeat itself with children in Brownsville, where blood amongst brothers in the neighbourhood is once again shed over material gains, continuing the spiral of hatred that has decimated his community.
What made Ka so great is that he never tried to change his style to appeal to the masses, refusing to even go on tour as he believed his music required a more delicate delivery to better understand the message. Knowing he would never achieve the mainstream financial success of his peers, he instead kept music as a passionate side-project, not a career. As a result, he was never forced to censor himself or dilute his message to retain an audience. Kaseem Ryan has passed away, but the stories he’s told and the lessons he leaves us with will last forever.
