Ka - “30 Keys” (Official Video)

Last year, the meditative DIY Brooklyn rapper/producer Ka teamed up with producer Preservation to form a duo called Dr. Yen Lo, and they album they released, Days With Dr. Yen Lo, sounded like bleak mid-’90s New York boom-bap taken apart and reassembled by minimalist aliens. I loved it. Ka has now followed it up with a new self-released two-song single, and he’s made a video for one of its songs, “30 Keys.” Though Ka tends to produce his own music, the beat for this one actually comes from like-minded New York veteran Roc Marciano. The song is a crime-life reminisce, rendered artfully and beautifully. And Ka himself directed the black-and-white video, in which Ka raps in the rain and fills his DVD tray up with blaxploitation classics.