Hip-Hop – Kaseem Ryan: All handmade

There are plenty of musicians who submit to the iron and often downright brutal laws of the culture industry or at least serve the general circus, who want to be part of the game and think they can have fun without a steel bath. And then there are a few who go their own way, who only trust in the power of their music, regardless of all the fashions, marketing strategies and customs of the music industry. Those who are convinced of the absoluteness of their art, who orient their lives around the necessity of not being able to live without writing the way they have to.

One such artist was Kaseem Ryan, who called himself KA as a musician and was one of the deepest and most wonderful rappers of our time. KA was born in the dangerous Brooklyn neighborhood of Brownsville. He fell into rap at the age of six, as he revealed to “Impose” magazine: “I was chosen for it. That was my music.« He had been active as an MC since the early 90s, becoming a member of the Natural Elements crew, which he left shortly before they signed their first record deal. He later founded the duo Nightbread with a friend. But somehow nothing really came of all the projects.

He saw everything Kaseem Ryan did as a service to society – be it as a firefighter or as a rapper.

In 2008, Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA invited KA to record an entire song, “Firehouse,” for GZA’s current album – an accolade in the hip-hop world. In the same year, KA released his first album: The solo work was entitled “Iron Works”, and the expression “he published”, which is so often used as a matter of course in music journalism, can here, for once, be understood literally: he released his album as well as all ten of them others on his own label (which he called Iron Works) entirely on his own, first distributing them to friends and relatives, later selling them on his own website or by standing in front of a record store in his hoodie – »directly from the producer the customer« (Julian Brimmer), truly independent, truly and heartily DIY. For his latest and, as we now know, last work “The Thief Next to Jesus”, published in August of this year, he even opened a pop-up store in New York on September 28th (“Pounds and hugs still free” , he flapped at X). He just didn’t want to send his things anymore because that would have meant too long a time without family and friends and compromised his health and creativity, he said, commenting on his decision.

Kaseem Ryan’s main job was as a firefighter since the late 1990s and he became a captain at the New York Fire Department. He was one of the “first responders,” the firefighters who were the first to rescue people from the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. He wrote his lyrics at night or on the weekends; they are about chess, samurai symbolism, biblical parables, religion, the “Iliad” or other myths. The music is sparse, he uses special samples, sometimes downright tired loops, agonizing beats, hardly any drums. Classic hip-hop, no question, but the focus is on its urgent, often melancholic lyrics – expressive lyrics that report on childhood injuries as well as on a life in circumstances that seem unlikely to change. »Fuck this place! But it’s my only home, it’s all I’ve known” (“My Only Home”).

KA died on October 12th at the age of just 52. El-P from the duo Run the Jewels wrote on X: “If I seem like I’m at a loss for words it’s because Ka took all the good words with him.” , then it’s because Ka took all the good words with him”). He saw everything Kaseem Ryan did as a service to society – be it as a firefighter or as a rapper. Our earth would be a better place if there were more people like him.