Recently I have been seeing articles saying Kenya Airways was not abbreviated as KA because Korean Airlines came before and was given KA. 

That's a huge lie and I am shocked that in the current world people still can't find the correct information. Korean Airways code by ICAO is KAL with call sign KOREANAIR. 

What about KA? Well Hong Kong Dragonair is given KA code by IATA and HDA code by ICAO. The funny thing is Dragon air is younger than Kenya airways being founded by 1985 and KQ 1977, so well it's a bit tricky learning how ICAO AND IATA chose codes. 

IATA in full is International Air Transport Association while ICAO is International civil Aviation organisation.