Essay On Brother Ali

Music has the power to directly influence people. It takes direct control of the minds of listeners and influences the ways people operate, including their actions, motives, and feelings. This influence can be seen in all genres of music. Each genre is made to generate a specific response from listeners, whether it is a high energy, head banging response from metal, or a smooth and relaxing response from R&B. When addressing responses to music, another interesting aspect to consider is the lyrics. Lyrics have a strong presence in music, usually telling a story or circling around a common topic or theme. Songs that separate themselves from others are those possessing lyrics that portray a message. Often times, these lyrics that can rally a group

In 1977, Ali was born into an impoverished white family and was often exposed to the racism, violence, and hardships experienced in African American communities. One feature that set Brother Ali apart from his other white counterparts was his albinism, a defect in melanin production resulting pigment in the skin, hair, and eyes. From the start of his life, he started to experience similar sorts of rejection and unfairness that some black people would similarly face. Brother Ali actually tried to find an answer in life that would promote opposite outcomes to what he was experiencing. At the age of 15, Brother Ali converted to Islam. Through an interview with Chris Riemenschneider and the Star Tribune, he said it helped him improve his “self-identity after years of feeling like an outcast due to being an albino” (Ali, “Discusses His Arrest”). Since these experiences early in his life, Brother Ali has expressed his harsh feelings towards

In his novel: Hip-hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap, Jeffrey Ogbonna Green Ogbar addresses the traditional themes of Hip hop music. There are the traditional minstrel stereotypes caused from “the marketing of hip-hop” (Ogbar 2007: 41), the dehumanization of women in hip-hop culture where they must have a persona of “soft femininity or being one-of-the-boys” (103), and the “thug life” theme where violence against the police and gangs is deemed satisfactory in this way of life (156). Brother Ali similarly addresses these issues but the other way around. Instead of praising and accepting these common lyrical practices, he counters them by calling out the problems and promoting ways to fix them. By making this music, he also potentially setting an example for the black culture in the