Brother Ali: The undisputed truth-teller

The first time I heard Brother Ali, I was taken away with the passion and lyrics he provides in his tracks. I then started researching him and found out that he’s a human first before becoming an artist and that’s what I loved about him. Brother Ali is an American Muslim Hip-Hop artist from Minnesota. Brother Ali uses his music as a platform to speak frankly about class and racial privileges and about finding the courage to confront injustice. His description of Haj was admirable. Arab News chatted with Brother Ali and had the below quick discussion:

When was the first time you held a microphone and performed?
My first show was in 1985 when I was 8-year-old. I actually performed at my Grandmother’s funeral; she was really supportive of me, so when she passed away, it was the first time ever getting on a mic and performing, and I have done that ever since then. It wasn’t until 2002 that I was able to really have a career and support myself with music.

How do you think Islam is affecting your life?
It’s been my way of understanding myself and the world. It’s everything for me. It has given me a perspective on life and lead me to wanting to give my entire self to Allah. It’s a process, a lifelong process. I am trying to give a picture of what’s going on inside me when I am creating music, I don’t feel music for me is to do dawah or preach. I think my role and my responsibility is to make the most honest and real music I can.

In one of your interviews, you said that the Middle East and Africa have so much potential in hip-hop, elaborate more on that.
The thing about hip-hop is that you don’t need anything at all to create hip-hop, you don’t need instruments, you don’t need training, hip-hop comes from who you are, it comes from your expression. It’s the rawest form of human expression that we have. It’s a perfect voice for people who are voiceless, it’s a tool and medium for people whose stories aren’t heard, whose faces are not known, whose names aren’t spoken, who are suffering, and in the Middle East and Africa, a lot is going on there. Even musically, the culture and history have always been rich; all the elements of hip-op are there for people in the Middle East and Africa; it is a vehicle for letting the world hear what’s going on there.

In Saudi Arabia, the chance to perform live is very minimal. What advice would you give hip-hop heads here?
The most important thing is to express yourself completely honestly, the thing that makes art powerful is the people. No artists made their art powerful or popular, the people do that for you. If there is truth in their artistic creativity, people will hear, the people will seek you out.

In 2010, you visited Makkah for the very first time and performed Haj. How was the experience for you?
Without a doubt, that was the most challenging experience of my life! It was humbling to see the truth. I lived in two pieces of simple white cloths, slept in tents and on the ground, visited the most ancient symbols of spiritual oneness. You literally get caught up and carried by the crowd of humanity. To be in place with millions of people with all the commotion and hear it get dead silent for prayer and all you hear is wind and birds. I was challenged in every imaginable way. This has been the greatest exercise of patience I could imagine. Please don’t assume you know Islam because of what you’ve heard, I’ve practiced Islam for 19 years and didn’t truly understand it until now.
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