Brother Ali

 ( Official Website ) 

Ali is Caucasian race (white American), but he has spoken of feeling more accepted by African-American classmates than white ones: "It's not like black kids didn't make fun of me, but it was different. It wasn't done in a way to exclude me. It wasn't done in a way to make me feel like not even a human being, not even a person." He could relate to them because they were also judged by their skin color.

Ali began rapping at age eight. He has stated that he was influenced by hip-hop culture at a very early age. In an interview with Huck magazine, he stated "Ever since I was a little kid, I've always been into hip-hop. I started beatboxing when I was about seven years old. Eventually, that led to me falling in love with the words." "In hip-hop Brother Ali found faith and identity" Huck Adam Woodward Retrieved January 22, 2016 He has named Rakim, Chuck D, and KRS-One as early influences.

On April 4, 2017, he appeared on The Combat Jack Show: "The Brother Ali Episode" and on October 19, 2017, on BuzzFeed's See Something Say Something podcast.

On April 5, 2018, he appeared on Max Fun's Heat Rocks podcast.

On Jan 1, 2023, he appeared on The Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast.

Ali often makes fun of the media's constant urge to mention his albinism in the first lines of their reviews or newspaper articles. He is also legally blind, a condition which is caused by his albinism.

In an article titled "The Art of Mourning in America", Brother Ali said his favorite food is sweet potato pie. The interview was conducted during the month of Ramadan and Ali performed a freestyle: "Lifelong starvation, every month is Ramadan / Walk in the crib and I'm surprised that the power's on."

Ali credits his conversion to Islam to KRS-One, whom he met during a lecture at age 13 at a local Minnesotan university. When asked about his faith, Ali stated, "KRS-ONE was actually the one who told me I should read Malcolm X. He assigned The Autobiography of Malcolm X to me; I read it, and that's what led to me becoming a Muslim." "In hip-hop Brother Ali found faith and identity" Huck Magazine Adam Woodward Retrieved January 22, 2016

In 2012, Ali was arrested along with thirty-seven others while occupying the home of a Minneapolis resident to fight the house's foreclosure. The goal of the protesters was to block the eviction of the family through their assembly and occupancy, but they were unsuccessful. Ali ended up using his celebrity as a platform to discuss these events, and bring them to the attention of his audience.

Ali deals heavily with the notion of privilege. He stated in an interview with Yes! magazine that "The best definition of privilege I've heard is anything you don't have to wrestle with, that you don't have to think about." Ali feels a certain obligation to act politically, as he is unwilling to sit aside after experiencing all he has. He states, "I feel like that's my job, and I feel like within the last few years I fully woke up to that, found the courage to understand that, and stepped out like that."

While performing at a concert in 2015, Brother Ali endorsed Bernie Sanders for president of the United States, as a candidate in the upcoming 2016 presidential election. He praised Sanders for saying "Black lives matter" at a presidential debate, a reference to the social movement. In November 2019, Brother Ali performed at a Bernie Sanders rally in Minneapolis, alongside Representative Ilhan Omar.

• Underground hip hop
• Twin Cities hip hop

• Hess, Mickey. "Volume II: The Midwest, The South, and Beyond". Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2010. 368–70. Print.
• Jones, D. Marvin. "Part 1: Racing Culture/Erasing Race". Fear of a Hip-hop Planet: America's New Dilemma. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2013. 33–39. Print.
• Tepper, Fabien. "Rapper Brother Ali on Privilege, Hope, and Other People's Stories". YES! Magazine. Positive Futures Network, February 18, 2013.
• Ali, Brother. "The Intersection of Homophobia and Hip Hop: Where Tyler Met Frank". The Huffington Post. September 7, 2012.