For years Brooklyn-based FDNY captain Kaseem Ryan has been keeping his side line as a rapper on the down low, but why? Isn’t a firefighting rapper damn cool?…. Well, some of his colleagues don’t think so and there is a reason for that!
The 44 year old who commands Engine Co. 235 in Bedford-Stuyvesant goes by the stage name Ka. In 2013, his song included the lyrics
“F%#k them cops and swats with night vision,” and “I see your traps and your plots to dead us, y’all rolling with Kojaks, n***a, I got Berettas.”
In 2015, he first publically acknowledged the double life and in an interview said “I’m living two lives, man. I’m trying to be who I am in the day and then trying to feed my soul at night with being the artist that I want to be,”
The New York Post’s article on this said:
Some NYPD members were disgusted that a fellow first responder could utter such language.
“The biases he portrays through his music are indicative of what he believes or feels,” said Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association.
“As a New York City firefighter, he should be trying to bring people together rather than fracture relationships, especially in communities of color.”
And today, we are seeing many reports of this calling for him to be fired.
Now…. Thing is, personally I disagree.
This man, he deals with the police every day. He is an upstanding captain, he of course needs to put across a professional appearence BUT he is a firefighter.
He has a right to be angry with a department that are killing people just like him. He has a right to his artistic expression.
Ka is angry, Ryan is doing his job. But maybe we should listen to this man, not fire him. Why is he so angry, what has he witnessed, why is he bad mouthing people he works with every day?
Let the man have his voice, maybe he can provide some help, some insight?
What do you think?
Here is his 2013 album “The Night’s Gambit” below and the NYP article can be found here: http://nyp.st/2b7xETY
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