Brother Ali’s Undisputed Truth

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY

Minneapolis’ Brother Ali is one of those unbeatable all-weather heavy tanks they roll off the line at Rhymesayers when independent hip-hop starts feeling too soft or too fuzzyheaded—a humble hard-working clear-eyed moralist who put out his first tape with money from a police-brutality settlement and who raps (over production alternately slinky and hard-ass from Atmosphere’s Ant) with style (sympathetic to both Baby Huey and graceful lopers like W.C.) and soul as obvious and true as a WDIA station ID. “Son House,” he said in an interview with me. “He’s incredible. ‘Death Letter’ and ‘John the Revelator’—where he’s just clapping and singing—he was crazy. He’d beat the shit out of the guitar. That’s where all of this came from. All the things people say about rap they said about the blues. That it all sounds the same, or it’s negative, or the messages are bad—but it’s real people working through real shit. That’s beautiful to me.” Newest album The Undisputed Truth lets Ali chase politics and personal observation and examination over 15 tracks that detailed the world (“Only two generations away from the world’s most despicable slavery trade . . . ”) as much his own character (“I just don’t believe that quitting time exists!”) and even helped him land an earlier tour with Rakim, whom Ali remembers as “extremely classy and humble,” and who thanked Ali for translating his own hopes for hip-hop to a new generation. Now Ali is back as Rakim’s support—more tour grind without a complaint, but maybe a little proud softness when he talks about his son back home: “I put on his wall the things I want him to always remember,” Ali says. “‘Believe in God, tell the truth, be respectful, have good manners, and make good choices.’ At any point I can ask, ‘What is daddy teaching?’ And he knows. Everything goes back to one of those. I believe in manners!”

BROTHER ALI WITH GHOSTFACE KILLAH, RAKIM AND RHYTHM ROOTS ALL STARS VAULT 350 | 350 PINE AVE | LONG BEACH 90802 | 562.590.5566 | VAULT350.COM | WED 7PM | $30-35 | ALL AGES

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