While Akon is busy humiliating himself and giving another black eye to a culture and art form he claims to represent, I sought communion with the truth itself, hip-hop the way it is supposed to be. Brothers and sisters, I went to see Brother Ali at the Cat's Cradle. I left the club with my head spinning with even more words than usual, desperate to do justice to the magic I had witnessed.
First, a quick word about Psalm One, who opened for Ali.
Female MCs are still something of a novelty, and there are a couple of ways to think about them. One point of view runs like this- in a coed terrorist cell, you always kill the women first. A woman, the thinking goes, had to work ten times as hard as any of the men there in order to prove herself to the rest of the group. (Allright, I stole that from Garth Ennis' "Preacher")
The other way of thinking is the dancing bear. The point is not that the bear dances well, it is enough that a bear can dance at all.
Psalm One is not a dancing bear. She is an assasin on the the mic, and better than nine out of any ten male mcs you might randomly line up. It's hard for a man to make it in this business? I'd be willing to wager nearly anthing that it was a lot harder for Psalm One. Believe that.
One highlight of her set was Ali coming out to wipe off her sweat, the kind of little moment that suggests that maybe Rhymesayers is different from other labels, and that their MCs are having all kinds of fun on the tour.
Ali took the stage, and right away he took complete control over the crowd. Most rappers talk about how "real" they are with the same amount of hyperbole that they use to describe their purported wealth, their sexual prowess, how hard they really are. Not Ali. Although he is perfectly capable of the bragadocio that hip-hop borrowed from the Blues and we all know and love, he is also one of the realest cats in the game. After performing "Room With a View", the potent opening track from the "Shadows on the Sun" album, Ali made a point of telling the audience that the discarded souls who populate the song are real people that he knows, examples of a society that doesn't care about anyone who isn't rich or pretty enough.
Like another Minnesotan musical marvel, Ali leaves blood on his tracks. He raps about his divorce, moving between the poles of venom and reflection while he moves forward. His shameless gushing about how proud he is of his son Faheem should be embarrasing or maudlin, but instead is genuinely moving. (At the end of the show, Ali played a track, "Original Prince" that his boy recorded. And honestly? There are rappers who get a lot of airtime are put to shame by a six year old.) Ali hasn't yet put out an album as brilliant as Dylan's 1974 personal masterpiece, but give the man time, he ain't quite thirty yet.
At one point, the crowd spontaneously broke into an "Ali" chant, and while the obviously flattered MC posed and strutted, I couldn't help but think of that other Ali. Brother Ali would be the first to tell you that he ain't pretty like the Greatest Of All Time (who would have been one hell of an MC himself), but he can dominate like the man himself.
Ali avoided the biggest trap I was afraid he would fall into. While he hit most of the high points of his new album (The Undisputed Truth, in stores now), Ali didn't neglect his amazing breakout album, 2003's Shadows on the Sun or 2004's Champion EP. (Talking about the gap between releases, Ali pointed out that in the time it took to put out his new music, Jay-Z managed to retire, return and put out a new album). For me, the highlight of the show was the transcendent "Rainwater", off of the Champion EP. I had been waiting to hear the man perform what I firmly believe to be his greatest accomplishment since last year, when I saw Ali open for Rakim. At that show, the turntables apparently both wobbled and fell down, so the audience was treated to Ali rhyming over beats layed down by a brilliant beatboxer named (if I'm not mistaken) DJ Snuggles. That impromptu throwback was a real treat, the kind of show that you remember for the rest of your life. But it did leave me waiting to get the full Ali experience. He took the crowd through the highlights of Shadows on the Sun- "Room With A View", his half of the duet with Slug, "Blah Blah Blah", the domestic abuse saga of "Dorian", "Star Quality", "Forrest Whitiker", a triumphant performance of "Champion" that was nothing less than a victory lap. He took the audience to church, to a house party, to a political rally, and into the depths of his soul. In other words, he did everything that hip-hop music is supposed to do, which might be the highest compliment that I can think of.
Brother Ali brought the truth with him to Carrboro, and I was blessed to witness it.
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