At TIFF, Mahershala Ali named the record he had been listening to while preparing for Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother: Ka’s Honor Killed the Samurai.
Asked by CTV’s etalk what his character would have on a playlist, Ali described the album’s energy as “intentional, methodical.” He had listened to it repeatedly to find the character’s pace and tone. Interview reporting
The connection predates this film. In a 2016 interview about Kicks, Ali singled out Ka when asked which artists deserved more attention. Honor Killed the Samurai had just been released. He praised Ka’s writing and the fact that he produced his own music and made his own videos. AllHipHop interview
Ten years later, the record is part of how he prepares for a role.
We’ve written about Ka and The Odyssey, and now about Honor Killed the Samurai in our Canon. One of the things we love most about his work is how fully the stories create both an atmosphere and the people living inside it. The writing gives those people memories, obligations, regrets and ways of understanding what they’ve done. The music gives that interior life a surrounding world.
That makes an album something an actor can inhabit. You spend time inside a particular relationship to violence, grief, responsibility and survival. The deliberate delivery and spare production can feel like armor: a form Ka gives to experience so he can carry it, examine it and decide what to reveal.