Brother Ali tells it like it is.

Ayo, Dependin on the day, and dependin on what I ate
I'm anywhere from 20 to 35 pounds over weight
I got red eyes and one of them's lazy
and they both squint when the sun shines so I look crazy
I'm albino man, I know I'm pink and pale
And I'm hairy as hell, everywhere but fingernails
I shave a cranium that ain't quite shaped right
Face tight, shiny, I stay up and write late nights:

The lyrics from his track Forest Whitaker are his self portrayal and a harsh reminder that being born white does not necessarily guarantee you a smooth ride through life. As a mixed-race albino US Rapper Brother Ali remembers a childhood playground where white kids beat him silly because of... his white skin.

But he also remembers a black woman who seemed to understand him, and told him, 'You look the way you do because you're special.' he quotes her as saying. 'Not the short bus way, I mean that God's gonna test you/And all of this pain is training/For the day that you will have to lead with the gift God gave to you.'

Ali is known for his honesty and connects with his audience on highly personal issues such as not fitting in, being albino, of mixed race, his childhood and his Muslim faith.

'I'm trying to make music just respecting my personality,' Ali explains. 'I don't make religious music; I don't make music with some audience in mind. I'm not here to sell anybody on my belief; I'm just like this is me.'

Ali does not like to talk about his racial background, in a recent interview with Hugo Lunny for MVREMIX he doubted anyone could guess his ethnicity saying he did not want to use it as the main thing to market his music.

He went on to say 'with the advanced racism we have in the world - especially the United States - people are still so much trained to view people by race, which is different from ethnicity. Race is a made-up thing. We like to think about things in categories because it takes out a lot of the mental work. If you can put something in a category, and you know where it is, you leave it there, and that’s where you want it to be. It makes it easier for you to relate to it. When you can’t do that, it requires a lot more thought; you have to be a lot more objective. You have to think a lot more about how you’re going to relate to this thing, how you’re going to view it, and how you’re going to perceive it. So I think because of that, a lot of people struggle with me, to try to nail me down racially, or try to understand the albino thing more, but the reality is… I think me as a musician speaks a lot more than just that.

Brother Ali's album, The Undisputed Truth, is scheduled to be released next spring. Click here to find out more about Brother Ali and his music:

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Source:eveningstar.co.uk