CANON
AlbumKa, 2016
Honor Killed the Samurai
ABOUT THE WORK
On Honor Killed the Samurai, austerity and devotion are the only things worthy of true praise. Everything else is lamented. The drums frequently recede or disappear. Voices, samples and fragments of melody occupy spaces to remind you of what's missing and to show you it wouldn't serve a purpose here. Ka's delivery is methodical, trained so that violence, poverty, grief and survival arrive ragged, but it's never a burden he's incapable of carrying. They knock on doors opened by someone who survived long enough to understand what surviving required.
The samurai is more than an aesthetic device; it's part of Ka's artistry. Throughout his work, Ka uses codes of discipline, sacrifice and honor to examine the moral compromises of growing up in Brownsville. On “Firehouse,” from GZA's Pro Tools, he begins by naming the blocks he has lived on.
That tension between necessity and morality runs through the record. The balance between strength and restraint, grief and gratitude. Being caught between.
Ka understood that a person shaped by violence does not need to perform violence constantly for it to remain present. Trauma informs everything the subject produces. Sometimes its clearest expression is control, comfort with its presence.
Honor Killed the Samurai is an album about what it takes to survive and the harder questions about what survival leaves with you.
The samurai is more than an aesthetic device; it's part of Ka's artistry. Throughout his work, Ka uses codes of discipline, sacrifice and honor to examine the moral compromises of growing up in Brownsville. On “Firehouse,” from GZA's Pro Tools, he begins by naming the blocks he has lived on.
That tension between necessity and morality runs through the record. The balance between strength and restraint, grief and gratitude. Being caught between.
Ka understood that a person shaped by violence does not need to perform violence constantly for it to remain present. Trauma informs everything the subject produces. Sometimes its clearest expression is control, comfort with its presence.
Honor Killed the Samurai is an album about what it takes to survive and the harder questions about what survival leaves with you.