Orpheus, Hades, Sirens, Cyclops, Minotaur, Medusa, or Cerberus are not the usual terms you would expect on a rap album, but as we will show you many times on our web, this genre has as many unique projects as any other. Today we will visit Brooklyn, but not for long because we are going to go on Homer’s Odyssey.
Prologue
Kaseem Ryan Aka Ka was born in New York City in 1972. Rapper, producer, and firefighter comes from Brownsville, Brooklyn. We can confidently place him among the best rappers of all time. Ka made eight albums during his time on the scene, each with its own unique concept. The Night’s Gambit (2013) is a story told from the point of view of the chess master; Honor Killed the Samurai (2016) is full of parallels with what the Samurai believes; and Descendants of Cain (2020) builds on a reference from the Bible. But today we will talk about the album Orpheus vs. the Sirens (2018), which Ka made with producer Animoss under the pseudonym Hermit and the Recluse.
If you belong among the well-read listeners, you might recognize the front cover. The name Orpheus stretched along the whole length of the cover evokes the American cover of the book Ulysses by Irish writer James Joyce. The book describes an ordinary day for Dublin citizens in June 1904. But Joyce is paraphrasing Homer’s Odyssey. Ka does the same thing as Joyce did: he makes parallels between Greek mythology and life in the city, and through symbolism, he tries to transcend stories from his youth into something that stands out of time. Throughout human history, we can find the same core ideas; they just come from different situations and are put into different contexts. Ka is fully aware of the power of symbolism and uses it very effectively.
I. Sirens
„First you will reach the Sirens, who bewitch
all passersby. If anyone goes near them
in ignorance, and listens to their voices,
that man will never travel to his home,
and never make his wife and children happy
to have him back with them again. “
The Odyssey – Homer, Book VII.
The first track on the album starts with a dialog between Jason and Orpheus from the 1963 movie Jason and the Argonauts. We learn about Orpheus, a poet who is trying to get on Jason’s ship. He introduces himself with the words: “Of death I am knowledgeable, Danger I do not fear and I can give you music, music that will tame wild beasts, lift men’s hearts to heaven.” The track captured the chaos and brutality of ghettos full of crack, and with Animoss’s atmospheric production, it set the tone of the whole album. Before we start talking about each reference, let’s look at the style in which it’s all written. Ka tells his stories from the point of view of someone who doesn’t live outside the law anymore and just contemplates what he experienced. He speaks from the experience of someone who went through all of it. In each story Ka tells, there is some depth and pain. All these concepts work so effectively thanks to his constant reflections on what he experienced.
As Ka said himself in the interview for Out Da Box TV, during the crack epidemic in the 80s, he was just a teenager but already had to deal with the problems of adults. His whole neighborhood was staggering in trouble, and any mistakes have been paid for by blood, jail, or drug addiction. Like Orpheus on his journey, Ka had to resist the singing of dangerous sirens. Those are portrayed the same way as in the Odyssey, like a symbol of something we really want but ultimately will kill us.
As Michelle Little and Laurence Steinberg wrote in their Psychosocial Correlates of Adolescent Drug Dealing in the Inner City, “Five factors were found to significantly increase adolescents’ opportunity for drug selling: low parental monitoring, poor neighborhood conditions, low neighborhood job opportunity, parental substance use or abuse, and high levels of peer group deviance. The relation between drug-selling opportunity and adolescents’ frequency of drug selling was partially mediated by adolescents’ alienation from conventional goals and from commitment to school.” The vision of a quick fortune that would help you get out of the abyss lured a lot of people, including Ka growing up. In the 1980s, the number of juveniles selling drugs grew by 22%. As Homer wrote in the Odyssey in a short paragraph that you can read above: “First you will reach the Sirens, who bewitch all passersby. If anyone goes near them in ignorance, and listens to their voices, that man will never travel to his home”. Dealing drugs has the same destructive nature (even with the vision of success and money) as encountering sirens. But now let’s look at how Ka describes his experiences in songs.
„Being deprived of the papes made a lot of mistakes in my era
Hard life, course you needed white horse to defeat the Chimera
Every morning wake, never caught a break, revealed I was jinxed
To be the man deciphers life’s riddle or get killed by the Sphinx.“
Like his peers, Ka made many bad decisions because of his vision of money. The second line is referencing the tragedy of Bellerophon, who was sent to kill Chimera. To do so, he needed a Pegasus. Rapper was waking up every morning with the knowledge that he was caught in an infinite loop of problems, and if they weren’t solved, he would die (he would be killed by the Sphinx, which took the lives of everybody who wasn’t able to figure out her riddle).
„Large crops or hard rocks, it’s like we all saw Medusa
Till the roar of the silence, we at war with the tyrants
Blocks of outlaws, but all we watch out for is the Sirens.“
The creativity with which Ka is able to write is impressive. He is using the double meaning of the word “stoned” and comparing the state of mind after smoking weed to petrification when you make eye contact with the mythical Medusa. Furthermore, he is painting an almost apocalyptic vision of running away from the problems that life in ghettos brings. When we get out of our problems (defeat the tyrants), we’ll all be dead (till the roar of silence). Then he goes back to the sirens, aka dangers, he needs to avoid.
„All this uncertainty was hurtin me, I fought it from birth
I’m here writing this priceless, they just reportin’ they worth.“
He finishes the whole track with the feeling of uncertainty that was leading him through his life and criticizes other rappers for just bragging about their wealth, while Ka’s writing is priceless. The chapter above was supposed to show the gentle attitude with which the rapper talks about dark memories and serious issues and underlines the references to Greek mythology that are not just making the album interesting but also making the listeners think more carefully about each line as well as giving each problem a certain sense of immortality.
II. Oedipus
„And I saw the mother of Oedipus, beautiful Epicaste.
What a monstrous thing she did, in all innocence—
she married her own son …
who’d killed his father, then he married her!
But the gods soon made it known to all mankind.
So he in growing pain ruled on in beloved Thebes,
lording Cadmus’ people—thanks to the gods’ brutal plan—
while she went down to Death who guards the massive gates.
Lashing a noose to a steep rafter, there she hanged aloft,
strangling in all her anguish, leaving her son to bear
the world of horror a mother’s Furies bring to life. “
The Odyssey – Homer, Book IX.
Moving on to the penultimate track of the whole album, which we can consider the exact opposite of Sirens, the rapper is no longer in chaos where things are trying to constantly hurt him but in a much calmer and more pleasant part of his life. Ka is mainly addressing the values that make him who he is now. The name is borrowed from King Oedipus, who accidentally fulfilled the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Ka is using the name of the king as a name for the track in which he talks about the values of family. Before we go forward and pick the whole track apart, there is a story we would like to share with you. The whole track starts with a melody that changes to the beat just in a few seconds, into which Ka starts to rap. When Animoss sent the beat to the rapper, he knew that Ka wouldn’t be rapping into the opening melody but kept it in anyway. Ka almost didn’t listen to the beat because of how much he was discouraged by the melody, but then he heard the whole beat and liked it, so they kept it in.
As we already discussed, the core of the song is family and the overall values that Ka has. We can even see pictures of Ka’s friends and family in the official video, as well as the rapper and producer Animoss walking down the dark alleys and enjoying life. There are also some of their friends from the musical industry, like Roc Marciano, Chuck Strangers, producer Knxwledge, or Earl Sweatshirt. The chorus is then sending a clear message: “I’m ill prepared, Apparently we ain’t family, you can’t relate.”
„Value some of your health? Humble yourself, show respect
Beef ignited, we felt the least bit slighted we chose the rep
These clones around me hunting for a bounty like Boba Fett
The worst evaded perpetrators are the ones you don’t suspect
To never get crossed by gift horse like when the Trojans slept.“
In the first verse of the song, Ka points out the importance of health, humility, and respect. But it wouldn’t be Ka if he wouldn’t mention something about the environment he lives in (“These clones around me hunting for a bounty like Boba Fett“). The last two lines deal with betrayal, which, like a Trojan horse, comes from the people you’d least expect it from.
„Won’t die in battle, mommy dipped me in that river styx
When the sucker tried to rupture my Achilles, I didn’t miss
The home we grace, only place ignorance isn’t bliss
A crapshoot for KA, ’cause every night two die, get the gist?
“Unfortunates” is what they called us ’cause our fortunes at birth
It’s clear I greet the air sweet, I’m the salt to the earth.“
The third verse is a pure illustration of the rapper’s talent. He is again using Greek mythology, this time the legend about Achilles. According to the legend, Achilles was dipped in the Styx by his mother as an infant, which gave him invulnerability in his whole body except the heel by which he was held by her. Then Ka says that when someone tried to hurt him (rupture my Achilles), Ka didn’t miss and killed the man. In the next line, Ka emphasizes his love for his home, where there is no space for ignorance. “A crapshoot for KA, ’cause every night two die, get the gist?” Crapshoot is a game of craps. Ka is using the word “die” as a homonym. The word means death, and it is also the singular form of the word dice. So, as he says, he plays the game of dice because every night two die. He finishes the whole verse with the words that he welcomes the sweet air, but he himself is a salt for the earth since he is showing the ugly truth in his tracks.
Epilogue
At the end, we would like to point out the amazing work by the producer Animoss, whose unique, almost movie-like attitude to the production brings the overall quality of the album a little bit higher. The sound of the album has its own mythical atmosphere, which we wouldn’t find in any other rap album. Orpheus vs. the Sirens is a piece of music that points out the problems we have nowadays, especially those in the American ghettos, but through the parallels with mythical tales of ancient Greece, it gives them the feeling of eternity. Both artists have done an amazing job, and we are curious where they will be taken by their life odyssey.
„You either hunter or the prey, Pray you the hunter for hunters prey on you today.“
Sources: Sage Journals, A Building Roam, EricTheYoungGawd, Out Da Box TV
Translated from Czech by Rado.
