Get the latest gossip
Ka Was a Superhero
The Brooklyn rapper and firefighter left a model for making gripping art on your own terms.
Walking down 125th Street yesterday, I passed a white kid in a Cam’ron T-shirt who looked about Killa Season years old andthought about the power of rap to move a listener who did not experience the moment in time it depicts, and the tendrils of influence that can’t be tracked through record sales. Just as DOOM was molded in part by Elektra Records’ disinterest in releasing KMD’s 1994 sophomore album, Black Bastards, Brownsville veteran Ka — who died over the weekend at the age of 52 — spent the ’90s straining to get works with his groups Natural Elements and Nightbreed on shelves. The accompaniments for his terse, precise raps could be an ominous drum groove, like the snake-charming “Cold Facts” off his 2012 breakthrough sophomore effort Grief Pedigree, or a sweetly mesmerizing loop, like the gospel-band riff carrying “Collection Plate” from Thief.
Or read this on VULTURE