Mass Appeal magazine and Ka are products of Brooklyn, New York. The lifestyle and art magazine—originally based in Red Hook—relaunched in 2012 recapturing the nostalgia of its golden era in the mid-'90s, while Brownsville's Ka was arguably one of the only rappers to maintain fanfare at his mature age in 2012. Ka was once a member of the group Natural Elements and one-half of Nightbreed. Few artists have a chance at a comeback, much less magazines that fold.

 

Ka is a lyricist who prides himself on his words that are true to the experience of the trepidations of street life—hustling, poverty, crime. In a way, you could call him a creature of the night because many of his music videos and the photos he documents on his Tumblr are shot at sundown. His perspective of parts of New York at night is unique. In this day and age of the commercialization of NYC, it's rare that the city's grittier side is shown. The other people who share Ka's raw view point of dilapidated alleyways, and barren parks are NYC's blue collar workers or graffiti artists who traverse these areas in the twilight.

 

Mass Appeal's connection to Ka is directly influenced by Ka's imagery. To merge the two, Goliath Artists, Mass Appeal and Hennessy V.S, partnered for a live performance featuring Ka, featuring opening acts Big Baby Gandhi and Billy Woods. In this photo above, Ka takes the stage, backed by a projection of legendary graffiti artist Dondi White in the film Style Wars.