http://premierehiphop.com/2013/12/07/gambit-out-nights-forest-ka-sunez/
I still live poor but no longer poorly. When we was just young and poor, we were taught principles to honor ourselves. We basked in the fiscality of this deeper currency. That we wouldn’t be greedy, dishonorable, conniving for what we are doing so well without. But families survived and principles’ lover, idealism, was divorced. Every made opportunity became the assimilation of the dream and soon principles now singled lonely were abandoned. Righteousness is dismissed as a mystified attribute and those who work to carry it share it knowing the risks of poverty ensuing.
Brooklyn Past, from the breaks of my Sunset Park trials to even deeper in the melodic abyss of the crate, Ka emerges out of Brownsville to ponder his survival of that 80’s era Medina jungle. With his 3rd LP, The Night’s Gambit, Ka thrives in the artistry of introspection and continues to revolutionize this expressive culture of Hip Hop. In our build, Ka brought me beyond my own past, farther than the suffering of torn food stamps out of booklets and cheese in that long rectangular unmarked box. Instead, to the future we can all write ourselves into. That those ol’ moments would remain building blocks to integrity. That poverty is a wonderful price to pay for principles. And this Hip Hop music is the sound of salvation where the sacrifice of gambits is righteously successful.
SUNEZ: A lot of these other journalists noted you keep your private life to yourself then said you were a firefighter.
KA: They tried to put me on blast and the shyt is corny.
SUNEZ: Word. I just noticed the journalistic flaw. I saw in another article you didn’t even confirm you were that.
KA: Exactly. I don’t know where people hear it from and write it. Nobody ever asked me and when cats did ask me I told them I rather talk about the music. I only got into this to be a musician. All that other stuff is on the outside. It’s all about the music. You ain’t like it if I was a garbage man or a correction officer? We’re talking about the Art here.
SUNEZ: When I was in _____ they didn’t have a big catalog of actual music but they knew all the mundane shyt about people.
KA: Right. What you more concerned about? The music or his life? Right now we’re entertainment for a lot of people. It’s a little deeper for me than that. It’s therapy for me….This ain’t a character that I’m putting on. But with some people that’s what Hip Hop is for them. They want caricatures and pageantry but I’m just trying to give it to them as real as possible.
SUNEZ: People are looking more for a character and just to throw it back at you, some of the fault is your own because you paint such a good character. A lot of Night’s Gambit was on the reality of Ka and as the MC. What made these 11 songs go together as opposed to others?
KA: It was just that feeling I was getting. I felt like I did what I had to do on Grief. ..I always do new songs and I thought it would take a long time to do another album. Then all of a sudden these songs started coming to me. I can’t slow down or speed up creativity. When it comes, the shyt just comes. I’m just here waiting for it. It just so happened I got blessed. And I felt it was darker than Grief—Grief was dark but these joints that were coming were even darker than Grief. Then the album title came to me: Night’s Gambit. I wanted to play knight with chess pieces and the gambit is a move where you sacrifice something to get a better thing. And I felt as a kid I was sacrificing things to get a better thing. All the moves I was making was during the night. So shyt just started coming, Sunez and I just started just pouring out joints. I never stopped digging because it takes so long to dig for music I really can’t take time off. So every moment I get I’m in the record store. I’m in different record stores digging and digging. It just so happens a couple of joints I found had the sound I wanted. It just all worked by divine intervention and it started to work. I was very happy with the production on it.
SUNEZ: On the production I was thinking of 3 people. Other people have been doing it, of course, but I noticed the focus on Alchemist, Roc Marciano and you on the highlight of the dug sample. A highlight of its musicality over it’s drum break or placing a Boom Bap emphasis over it.
KA: I get it from Roc. I pull no punches. That’s my man and he taught me how to dig. He’s the one that was like, ‘Yo Ka, look for this. And I went on my grind.’ He said, ‘you know what you want to rhyme off of. So just go out and find it.’ He was the first one that was giving me beats and I loved them. It was his beat that I rhymed off “Firehouse” with GZA. He made that beat. From loving that beat and knowing how that beat propelled my whole rebirth that was what I wanted to rock off. That was the sound I was just loving. I was schooled by the dude that was—Roc to me is a master of that shyt. I was like the first and last student. I’m blessed that I was able to—that’s my friend. fukk the music. We found each other through the music but that’s my friend. We could talk about anything. We could talk for a whole weekend and not even mention music. But because of our association now that’s what people talk about. Now when I dig and I find something crazy I want to rhyme off music. I don’t want to rhyme off beats. When I listen to the shyt in the 90’s—that’s when I’m in that mode that I want to listen to shyt in the 90’s. I don’t really want to be associated with the 90’s aside from the theme. But the sound I want to be new. Some people hate the sound. It’s too quiet. It don’t have any dreams. But this ain’t for everybody and I ain’t trying to make it for everybody. This ain’t pop music. I know this ain’t pop music. This is music for people that just want to feel something and experience a whole other chapter of Art. Experience their own lane—Roc Marci, Ka and yes, Alchemist also has that sound now too. And maybe some other cats will come with that sound. We were the ones to trail blaze it then by all means I’m happy to just add something to the Art.
SUNEZ: The sound is new and the aura is 90’s but often they simply say 90’s because you’re of that era.
KA: Cause that’s the easiest category to put me in. It’s the easiest thing to put me and Roc in. We’re of a certain age, still doing Hip Hop, sounds like New York just because of their tones and because they’re into lyrics. You know, lyrics is really a New York thing mostly. Not that lyrics aren’t all over the world but when you hear a real lyrical dude it’s kind of always based in New York. But they’re not listening for the little nuances. This ain’t ’95 music. Grief Pedigree wouldn’t have survived in ’95.
I still live poor but no longer poorly. When we was just young and poor, we were taught principles to honor ourselves. We basked in the fiscality of this deeper currency. That we wouldn’t be greedy, dishonorable, conniving for what we are doing so well without. But families survived and principles’ lover, idealism, was divorced. Every made opportunity became the assimilation of the dream and soon principles now singled lonely were abandoned. Righteousness is dismissed as a mystified attribute and those who work to carry it share it knowing the risks of poverty ensuing.
Brooklyn Past, from the breaks of my Sunset Park trials to even deeper in the melodic abyss of the crate, Ka emerges out of Brownsville to ponder his survival of that 80’s era Medina jungle. With his 3rd LP, The Night’s Gambit, Ka thrives in the artistry of introspection and continues to revolutionize this expressive culture of Hip Hop. In our build, Ka brought me beyond my own past, farther than the suffering of torn food stamps out of booklets and cheese in that long rectangular unmarked box. Instead, to the future we can all write ourselves into. That those ol’ moments would remain building blocks to integrity. That poverty is a wonderful price to pay for principles. And this Hip Hop music is the sound of salvation where the sacrifice of gambits is righteously successful.
SUNEZ: A lot of these other journalists noted you keep your private life to yourself then said you were a firefighter.
KA: They tried to put me on blast and the shyt is corny.
SUNEZ: Word. I just noticed the journalistic flaw. I saw in another article you didn’t even confirm you were that.
KA: Exactly. I don’t know where people hear it from and write it. Nobody ever asked me and when cats did ask me I told them I rather talk about the music. I only got into this to be a musician. All that other stuff is on the outside. It’s all about the music. You ain’t like it if I was a garbage man or a correction officer? We’re talking about the Art here.
SUNEZ: When I was in _____ they didn’t have a big catalog of actual music but they knew all the mundane shyt about people.
KA: Right. What you more concerned about? The music or his life? Right now we’re entertainment for a lot of people. It’s a little deeper for me than that. It’s therapy for me….This ain’t a character that I’m putting on. But with some people that’s what Hip Hop is for them. They want caricatures and pageantry but I’m just trying to give it to them as real as possible.
SUNEZ: People are looking more for a character and just to throw it back at you, some of the fault is your own because you paint such a good character. A lot of Night’s Gambit was on the reality of Ka and as the MC. What made these 11 songs go together as opposed to others?
KA: It was just that feeling I was getting. I felt like I did what I had to do on Grief. ..I always do new songs and I thought it would take a long time to do another album. Then all of a sudden these songs started coming to me. I can’t slow down or speed up creativity. When it comes, the shyt just comes. I’m just here waiting for it. It just so happened I got blessed. And I felt it was darker than Grief—Grief was dark but these joints that were coming were even darker than Grief. Then the album title came to me: Night’s Gambit. I wanted to play knight with chess pieces and the gambit is a move where you sacrifice something to get a better thing. And I felt as a kid I was sacrificing things to get a better thing. All the moves I was making was during the night. So shyt just started coming, Sunez and I just started just pouring out joints. I never stopped digging because it takes so long to dig for music I really can’t take time off. So every moment I get I’m in the record store. I’m in different record stores digging and digging. It just so happens a couple of joints I found had the sound I wanted. It just all worked by divine intervention and it started to work. I was very happy with the production on it.
SUNEZ: On the production I was thinking of 3 people. Other people have been doing it, of course, but I noticed the focus on Alchemist, Roc Marciano and you on the highlight of the dug sample. A highlight of its musicality over it’s drum break or placing a Boom Bap emphasis over it.KA: I get it from Roc. I pull no punches. That’s my man and he taught me how to dig. He’s the one that was like, ‘Yo Ka, look for this. And I went on my grind.’ He said, ‘you know what you want to rhyme off of. So just go out and find it.’ He was the first one that was giving me beats and I loved them. It was his beat that I rhymed off “Firehouse” with GZA. He made that beat. From loving that beat and knowing how that beat propelled my whole rebirth that was what I wanted to rock off. That was the sound I was just loving. I was schooled by the dude that was—Roc to me is a master of that shyt. I was like the first and last student. I’m blessed that I was able to—that’s my friend. fukk the music. We found each other through the music but that’s my friend. We could talk about anything. We could talk for a whole weekend and not even mention music. But because of our association now that’s what people talk about. Now when I dig and I find something crazy I want to rhyme off music. I don’t want to rhyme off beats. When I listen to the shyt in the 90’s—that’s when I’m in that mode that I want to listen to shyt in the 90’s. I don’t really want to be associated with the 90’s aside from the theme. But the sound I want to be new. Some people hate the sound. It’s too quiet. It don’t have any dreams. But this ain’t for everybody and I ain’t trying to make it for everybody. This ain’t pop music. I know this ain’t pop music. This is music for people that just want to feel something and experience a whole other chapter of Art. Experience their own lane—Roc Marci, Ka and yes, Alchemist also has that sound now too. And maybe some other cats will come with that sound. We were the ones to trail blaze it then by all means I’m happy to just add something to the Art.
SUNEZ: The sound is new and the aura is 90’s but often they simply say 90’s because you’re of that era.
KA: Cause that’s the easiest category to put me in. It’s the easiest thing to put me and Roc in. We’re of a certain age, still doing Hip Hop, sounds like New York just because of their tones and because they’re into lyrics. You know, lyrics is really a New York thing mostly. Not that lyrics aren’t all over the world but when you hear a real lyrical dude it’s kind of always based in New York. But they’re not listening for the little nuances. This ain’t ’95 music. Grief Pedigree wouldn’t have survived in ’95.
