Hip-hop legend Brother Ali’s soft-spoken and eloquent voice did not sound like the urgent ramblings that you would expect from an artist in between tour sites and interviews, but when I spoke with him in preparation for his Madison show, he was calm and prepared.
Ali will be performing at the High Noon Saloon on Thursday night as part of his “Home Away From Home” tour that will literally take him back to his origins.
Originally born in Madison, Ali has brushed shoulders with some of the greatest of the greats in hip-hop music. He has collaborated on songs with the likes of Talib Kweli, Public Enemy, Chuck D and Immortal Technique. He has toured with rappers like Rakim and Ghostface Killah of the legendary Wu-Tang Clan in addition to being one of the world’s best battle rappers.
Brother Ali’s LPs never cease to elicit strong emotions from his listeners and the media. In the case of his second LP Shadows on the Sun, Ali received near unanimous critical acclaim and was compared to Nas on the Illmatic album. Contradictory to the critical acclaim on his second album, his third LP The Undisputed Truth sparked media uproar for his disapproval of the American political juggernaut.
Though Ali is no stranger to doing performances in Madison, he pointed out that he especially loves the spirit of the Madison crowd as opposed to other crowds across the world.
“Yeah, we used to go three or four times a year, and now it’s more like once a year.” Brother Ali said. “I would say the spirit of the shows is really great there. People come out and they’re involved. You know, they don’t just stand and watch.”
Known to media outlets as an outspoken voice on injustice and social unrest in the world, Ali is equally as renowned for his live shows and for applying his extensive knowledge of hip-hop culture in his music and performances.
Ali seeks to bring that knowledge of the old school, live hip-hop show to the modern audience who may be more concerned with their Instagram post than the live performance and the moment in front of them.
“I think the people are used to going to shows where the entertainer is in their own world and the audience is in their own world,” Brother Ali said. “So when I come out I try to do crowd interaction and get the crowd amped up. Like damn, people spend a lot of the shows looking at their phone now.”
From being on late night shows like The Late Late Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to rocking freestyles on Sway Calloway’s “Sway in the Morning” radio show, Ali is no stranger to walking in the same circles as some of the biggest names in entertainment.
In fact, fame does little to impress him, especially when he is in his zone on the stage. Not even Justin Timberlake is safe when Brother Ali is spitting rhymes on his pedestal.
“I just thought it was some dude that jumped on stage.” Brother Ali said. “So I kicked him off stage because you know, I don’t see very well. He didn’t look like Justin Timberlake; he looked like some regular dude from the audience who climbed on stage. It was unfortunate…He looked at me like he couldn’t believe it, I’m like, ‘Get out of here, what are you doing?’ After the song was over my DJ told me that that was him. So I went back and fortunately I was able to grab him and apologize profusely.”
