It took a sense of righteous outrage for Martin Luther to nail his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenberg’s All Saints’ Church in 1517, emphatically announcing his opposition to the Roman Catholic Church’s practice of selling indulgences in exchange for salvation. It’s unclear what the final straw was for , but the Brownsville rapper delivers a similar diatribe with his stunning, strident new album Spotlighting the fraught relationship between Christianity and Black Americans, the rapper born Kaseem Ryan explores the hypocrisy of a religion that preaches deliverance yet subjugates its followers—and argues the urgent need to reframe that bond. Ka is no stranger to ambitious themes.
He’s utilized chess ( in 2013), Greek mythology ( in 2018), and feudal Japanese codes (2016’s ) as conduits for self-analysis. He has mined his upbringing to craft cinematic epics that covertly lead you down the pain-filled alleyways of the city that raised him. On , he displays tunnel-vision focus as he takes aim at the complicated links between Black Americans and Christianity.
Ka’s albums have long been rooted in Biblical allegories. His 11th solo album feels like a spiritual extension of his 2019 release , where he invoked the story of Abel’s brother to portray himself as having been forsaken by the world. This time he calls upon the tale of the thieves on the cross: Both mocked Jesus, but one repented, receiving last-minute salvation before being crucified.
The rapper kn.