I had a daily routine when I was teaching 2nd grade in 2005. I taught in CPS at a terribly underfunded and under performing school. 99% of the students were on free lunch, close to that were below grade level. I was angry. Angry about the daily struggles I faced in the classroom, and how I couldn’t really help my students with the ones they faced after the final bell rang at 3:15. When I got home each night, I would take off my teacher’s clothes, put on my hoodie, and play the angriest records in my collection. Dipset? Yup. 50 Cent? Of course. dead prez? You know it. The angrier the better. I did that for a release, and also for some kind of music that spoke to my emotions as well as what I saw outside my classroom windows each day. I didn’t want to necessarily listen to music as an escape at those times, but as something that would tell me, ‘shit is bad out here, but people do get through it.’ That same spirit is the one in which I now listen to Ka, and his incredibly good album, Grief Pedigree. It’s weird to say that music as dark and raw as Ka’s is refreshing, but that in this case it fits. Especially when put Ka into the context of what’s on the radio and garnering the most hits on websites and twitter.
Ka was born and raised in Brownsville. He grew up in poverty, and had what he describes as a tough childhood. “I was lucky that I escaped going to jail. I could’ve easily been in jail, I could’ve easily been murdered,” he told me via phone about coming up in New York City. Ka found music and basketball as a kid, and he says they became his savior, his peace of mind, as well as his therapist. He continues to make music to this day as a way to deal with what he is going through. And now nearing the age of 40, with 20 years in, Ka is finally getting his props.
“For years I was like, ‘why the fuck do I rhyme?’ I hated that I rhymed,” Ka said, calling his musical talents both a gift and a curse. “I hated it because I felt like my time had passed and I was still so connected to the music and nobody cared to listen to what I had to say. It felt like the time was changing and the shit that I honed so long and tried to master in solitude for so long was all in vain, and that bothered the shit out of me. I had a lot of dark days with the art. Right now, it’s good that I have a listener. There’s somebody out there that listens to my album and thinks that it’s amazing and that feels so fucking good to me.”
Ka’s days are brighter thanks to the success of Grief Pedigree, and the acclaim he has received from music critics and fans. It was actually New York photographer Alexander Richter that put me onto Ka’s music. Richter stayed at my apartment in late January. He brought a lot of music with him, but it was Ka’s that really stood out. “Some listeners just go to music to escape to something else. They want to sing along with the artist that is like, ‘I’m rich, I’m rich,’ it makes them feel better and I understand that,” Ka says about his appeal. “But there’s some that don’t want that, they want to feel in touch, to know that someone else is going through the same things that they’re going through. I think that’s a breathe of fresh air that I give them… And that’s what I went into it for. I want that. That’s why I do music.”
In this interview with Ka, we talk about his Grief Pedigree LP, his reasons for making music, and how it feels to be labeled a hot new artist while closing in on 40. Check it out.