Ka may have released the best rap album of 2013 with The Night’s Gambit, a minimal masterwork of whispered knowledge and abstracted boom-bap written, produced, and performed by the man himself. The Brooklyn firefighter/artist directs his own music videos as well and they dwell in a similar space. Previously released clips for “Peace Akhi” and “Jungle” are black-and-white, set in Ka’s New York, and free of any frills whatsoever. Now the album opener “You Know It’s About” gets a visual, via Nah Right, that shows our host looking as contemplative and hardened as he sounds, rapping quietly behind fences and bars, with a few of his lyrics finding literal footing in between. “They hear my voice,” he hisses. “They know it’s about / That pain, that gutter.”
