True story: a few years ago one of my favourite artists comes to town and plays a tiny club in Toronto. It’s packed. It’s hot. It was a memorable concert.
Funny thing though - the opening act stole the show.
That was my introduction to Brother Ali.
His second album on RSE, and the first produced by ANT, was 2003’s Shadows on the Sun. It was everything I’d want in a hip-hop album - clever, honest and authentic lyrics over soulful tracks.
That’s why, when I read this post on Oh Word, I couldn’t wait to check out his new album, The Undisputed Truth:
“Lyrically, Ali is on the top of his game delivering material that treads the fine line between Ice Cube’s anger, Kane’s swagger, Slug’s emotional honesty and an early Andre’s down-home pessimism. The resulting combination is a uniquely Midwestern album, one concerned with day to day living in an age of government intervention and broken hearts. The combination of sheer virtuosity and uncontrolled intensity Ali is best known for astounds”
Woah. I’ve been listening to the album incessantly this trip. It’s powerful. My hope is that as rap continues its crumbling decline, glorifying the negative, chastising the positive, that this album, and it’s raw passion and intensity is a beacon of light for what lays ahead for the troubled genre.
Here’s two tracks from the upcoming album. The scary thing is that these are middle of the road on this killer album.
