Ka, a lone veteran of New York's underground rap scene, dies at 52

Kasim Ryan, who built a small but fervent following as the underground Brooklyn rapper known as Ka while maintaining a career as a New York City firefighter, died in the city on Saturday. He was 52.

His death was announced by his wife, Mimi Valdes, on Instagram, as well as in a statement posted on her Instagram page. No cause was given, though the statement said he “died unexpectedly.”

First with the mid-1990s underground group Natural Elements, and then on 11 solo albums he produced and released over nearly two decades, Ka gripped hard-core hip-hop audiences with melancholic beats and vivid descriptions of street life and struggle.

In a 2012 review of his second album “Grief Pedigree,” pop music critic John Caramanica of The New York Times described Ka as “a striking rapper who has forgotten: the flash, the filigree, any sense that the hard work has already been done.”

Kasim Ryan was born in 1972 and raised in the Brownsville area of ​​Brooklyn, New York. In his teens, he dealt crack and sold firearms.

He spent much of the 1990s trying to make a name for himself as a rapper, but then quit music altogether, only to return a decade later.

In 2007, at the age of 35, he released his solo debut album “Iron Works”. Initially, he produced 1,000 copies of the album and used a guerrilla approach to promote it.

“I gave them to my cousins, my friends. I still had 990 CDs left. So I started giving them,” he said in a 2017 interview with The Times. “I'd drive around town, and if I heard music coming from the next car at a red light — boom-boom-boom — I'd say, 'You like hip-hop?'”

By the time she released her second album, “Grief Pedigree,” in 2012, she had built a small but enthusiastic enough fan base to announce the release on social media and hold a curbside sale in Greenwich Village.

This led to a tradition of album releases: Ka would announce a new album on social media and set up on a street corner to sell dozens of hard copies from the trunk of his car.

In 2017, the New York Times' round-up of the 25 most influential songs featured Ka sitting in his Brooklyn home study, packing up orders for his CDs and mailing them to his fans.

When he wasn't making music, he was a captain in the New York Fire Department.

“I try to keep my work and music separate,” he said in a 2017 Times interview. “I never wanted to be 'The Rapping Captain'. I try to be a good firefighter. And when I come home, I try to put on some dope music.”

In some of his songs, Ka talked about the violent lifestyle of the drug trade in the 1990s, and he lamented police brutality. In a 2016 article, he was criticized by members of the New York Police Department for anti-police chants.

His death statement on Instagram said he was a 20-year veteran of the fire department and responded to the 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attack.

According to a statement on Ka's Instagram page, apart from his wife, he is survived by his mother and sister. Survivors have not been named.

Ka's latest album, “The Thief Next to Jesus,” explores Christian themes and was released this year.

In a review of the album, Pitchfork wrote: “Using thoughtful, purposeful phrases and fragments, Ka draws you in, making you hang with every word. His delivery is patient and measured, with a steady intensity that's unwavering, as if he couldn't be more sure of his path forward.”

Sheelagh McNeil Contribute research.