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Brother Ali - The Undisputed Truth
First off, all articles written about Brother Ali will mention that he’s a white albino Muslim legally blind rapper out of Minnesota. With that out of the way, it’s probably safe to say that the Brother Ali album was my favourite LP released this year. There might have been better albums released, but The Undisputed Truth was the most pleasant surprise to my ears by far. My own prejudices of independent hip-hop make me think of it as Def Jux styled material; dense wordplay over sci-fi inspired beats. Brother Ali doesn’t go for the ‘deep’ concepts or lyrics that will have you repeatedly searching your thesaurus, opting instead for emotional impact and a delivery reminescent of a weathered bluesman. He claims inspiration emcees such as KRS-ONE and Rakim from the so-called Golden Age of Hip-Hop and his simple yet potent delivery definitely shows it off. Ant’s top notch production plays to these strengths, and gives Ali the perfect soulful background to his raps, doing his best to bring Ali’s live presence to the limitations of a purely aural medium. Most of these tracks wouldn’t sound out of place on pop radio either.
Also, while there’s plenty of traditional rap braggadocio to go around, Brother Ali also talks about topics like his faith, his race, his divorce, his raising his son as a single parent and the death of his mother with such candour that the title of the album isn’t a boast, it’s a confessional. The album definitely makes me want to dig around and listen to the rest of Ali’s catalogue.
Oh, and Ear to Ear is probably the happiest anybody’s ever sounded about being able to buy furniture from Ikea.
Recommended tracks: Truth Is, Uncle Sam Goddamn, Walk Home, Daylight, Ear to Ear, but everything is pretty good.
*Bear in mind I have not yet had a proper listen to the Talib Kweli, Common, UGK, Freeway, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang, Ghostface or Lupe albums that dropped this year. I’m not certain any of them would unseat The Undisputed Truth though.
Akmal + Hilman
I don’t think there are going to be very many photos of the boys for some time since they’re not exactly doing very much and it doesn’t make for very interesting posts. From the picture you can probably tell they’ve had their hair shaven off. They’re fraternal, not identical twins and Akmal (the older one) has sharper features than his brother. Hilman has a more rounded face like his big sister, meaning he probably takes after mum. Farah is adapting very well other than being a nosy little girl and there’s no resentment whatsoever (very possibly due to her regularly watching this at home). She refers to herself as “kakak” sometimes too. And just like how she used to lift up her shirt to show that she was pregnant, she now does so to breastfeed Ernie and Elmo.
Busiek / Simone
I’d only managed to attend the last talk they gave for the festival (Superheroes in Singapore), which was the only one I was really willing to forego. I’m not really sure it was worth it just to get my copy of Astro City: Life in the Big City signed as I’d really wanted to hear them talk about the ins and outs of being a professional in the comics industry. The crowd was far more manageable than the one who turned up to see Gaiman though, although I guess Gaiman does novels and films a lot more these days, spreading his fame beyond fans of four colours.
Also, I really hate when they have to dress comics up as “graphic novels” because that makes it seem more literary.
Lagos, Nigeria
From Current
Doing post-colonial literature I think we covered a little bit regarding Nigeria through the works of Chinua Achebe, and the reason why I enjoyed taking my course is that as far as the humanities are concerned literature covers a lot of ground. Unfortunately a lot of us (myself included) don’t take the time to follow up the study of art with the study of life.
I still believe that an urban environment can be the best choice for humanity ecologically and economically speaking, but this particular mini-documentary shows some of the problems that humanity faces in actually translating an ideal city into a functioning reality. And to keep things local, Lagos is the fastest growing mega-city in the world, referring to urban areas with more than ten million people. Granted the fastidious nature of the Singaporean administration means we’re unlikely to have slums on the level that Nigeria does, but I hope awareness of the situation of other cities in managing their populations means we tread more cautiously towards the goal of a population of more than six million.
