“I believe in the capacity to do things with the tools we have. But my painting is not about freedom,” artist Libasse Ka told me during a recent conversation. “I think freedom is pretentious in a way.

Celebrated New York City rapper and former firefighter Ka, whose real name was Kaseem Ryan, has died, according to his social media accounts. He was 52. He passed away “unexpectedly” on Saturday, a ...

Remembering the hip-hop artist (and New York City firefighter), who died over the weekend at 52. By Jon Caramanica One of the great joys of being a pop music critic is being able to ingest an artist’s ...