Written by Noah Goodbaum | Photography by Philip Litevsky

Fire and brimstone, blood, sweat and tears. Fearless, ferocious, indomitable. Headstrong in the face of turmoil and danger, as implacable as the elements. That’s Brother Ali. Or rather, that’s the vibe Brother Ali gives off on record throughout most of his two officially released albums, Shadows On The Sun and the recent The Undisputed Truth. The other side of the coin is that he’s also a wellspring of feeling– pain, regret, sadness; the dichotomy between outer ferocity and inner insecurity is part of what makes him so compelling for so many listeners. But generally speaking, the impression one gets listening to a Brother Ali album is that he’s a tour de force, a man of Herculean strength and nearly unlimited confidence, ready to take on the world and more than convinced that he WILL bring it to its knees. He lays down the LAW. And his reputation for bringing that gale-force energy to the stage in live performance is so legendary that I expected to be blown off my feet as soon as he opened his mouth.

The funny part is, I wasn’t. Not once all night. It was a fantastic performance, but he wasn’t a rampaging beast. He wasn’t Jules Winfield, raining the wrath of a just Lord down on the oppressors of the downtrodden. He didn’t roar at the top of his voice; he barely raised it. He was almost genteel. He was down-to-earth, relatable, just a man. I don’t want to say a ‘normal’ or an ‘ordinary’ man, because part of the point of Ali’s music is his effort to show himself to be extraordinary. Even his suffering–which is very much meant to be seen as the suffering of an everyman–is rendered extraordinary through the sheer depth of that suffering and the raw candor and honesty with which he shares it with us. The Rhymesayers label is partly about the community ethic of the little people in the snowy Midwest, putting out dope rap shit and not standing tall on high horses; but Ali’s urgency and explosive energy made me assume he’d stand in contrast to that. Not so. He’s just a man, and he treated the audience not as captives to be rendered dumbstruck and awed into silence, but as his equals.

He was really good to us, actually. He took requests– something he claimed only to do when he knew he wanted to make a crowd happy– and spit a number of unreleased and rare joints, including a new a capella verse that tore the place off its hinges. He made “Pedigree”, a marvelous and uncharacteristically low-key brag-rap joint, snap and crackle, and his “Picket Fence” was a tidal wave of poignant emotion of the kind you’d imagine no live act could ever conjure. “Walking Away”– a confessional joint about divorce woes that one would imagine might be too personal to kick in front of a crowd– appeared with minimal fuss and was turned, along with “Forest Whitaker”, into a rousing singalong. And the crowd went positively apeshit for all of it– you could tell they were seasoned fans who understood exactly what he was trying to do and appreciated it. He explained that that night was a holy day in Islam, the joyous festival of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the monthlong Ramadan fast; but, he told us, “I’d rather be here with y’all”. With all the anguish he expresses in his songs about how touring keeps him away from his beloved young son, Faheem, it was hard to believe he meant it, but if it counts for anything, I did. I barely get a whiff of insincerity about anything the man says or does; that’s part of his appeal.

I can’t say the same for opener Blueprint, unfortunately; or rather, it’s not that he doesn’t appear to be sincere, but that the feelings he’s sincerely expressing don’t resonate with me even close to as much as they do with most indie-rap listeners I’ve met. The stage presence he gives off is grumpy and misanthropic. There can be no doubt that the man knows how to hold a stage– I hated the vibe he gave off, but I was still unable to look away. But most of his songs seem to be about critiquing the behaviour of others, presenting himself as a blameless good man who gets trod upon, and complaining about the state of modern rap music (he even titled his latest joint 1988, so he’d get the message about where he wishes it was.) I haven’t given Blueprint’s music a fair listen; I haven’t even heard most of it. But barring “Final Frontier”, which everyone knows is fucking great, the songs he performed at the show didn’t do much to confirm my initial suspicions that he wasn’t my cup of tea. He may be yours; my opinion isn’t the be-all-end-all. If you don’t know Blueprint, give him a shot.And please, I’d really recommend that you seek out Toki Wright’s shit as well.

I didn’t have the funds to be able to cop his album that night, but God knows he would have deserved my skrilla, if the songs he performed were any indication. He acted as the evening’s host, and relentlessly ribbed and toyed with the audience, radiating such energy and enthusiasm that he made a leap for the ceiling to climb atop the speakers seem like something he might do every day. His m.o. doesn’t seem to be wildly different from Blueprint’s– he had a song about standing for truth against lies, which is the kind of song my worldview makes me intrinsically skeptical of. But the difference, for me, was the warmth and goodwill he exuded, in contrast to Blueprint’s aloof mien. And he made no bones about getting us HYPE, either; he made it known that we was gonna PARTY TONIGHT, and even if not a single other person had shown their face on stage, he made it so we already had.

Brother Ali is so complex and fascinating an artist that he probably deserves an essay unto himself, so it’s hard to find a way to finish this review in a manner that’s pat and satisfying; Rhymesayers are an exceptional label in that they’re not just one thing, and their story always seems perpetually unfinished. But one thing i can tell you for sure is that Brother Ali and Toki Wright can put on a fucking SHOW. And another is that I think they deserve your support.