Personal Life
Brother Ali was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and spent his early childhood moving from city to city in the Midwest (mostly in Michigan). Ali's family settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1992. He attended Robbinsdale Cooper High School in New Hope, Minnesota. He has a son, Faheem, from his first marriage, and remarried in 2008. On the song "Real as Can Be" off his EP The Truth Is Here he says he also has a daughter on the way. According to the song "Fresh Air" on his September 2009 album Us, he goes on to say "Just got married last year/ treated so good that it ain't even fair/ already got a boy now the baby girl's here/ Bought us a house like the Berenstein Bears." He has family in the Minneapolis area. Brother Ali takes family very seriously and sees it as a major part of life.
Ali was born with the rare genetic condition of albinism, a disorder characterized by a lack of pigment in skin, eyes, and hair. Brother Ali often makes fun of the media's constant urge to mention his condition in the first lines of their reviews or newspaper articles. He is also legally blind which is caused by his albinism.
While Brother Ali's family is white, he has often described a childhood marked by cruelty and exclusion by his white classmates as a result of his physical abnormality. He has often explained that, from an early age, he felt "most at home amongst African Americans."
When Ali's career began to blossom, he began to field questions about his race. Due to his stage name (a common reference among religious communities, particularly Muslims), many writers assumed Ali was black. When questioned on the subject, Ali declined to comment. However, in the song "Daylight" on his album The Undisputed Truth, he stated: "They ask me if I'm black or white, I'm neither/ race is a made up thing; I don't believe in it". He then goes on to explain how black people have played a major role in his life:
"My genes tie me to those that despised me/ Made a living killing the ones that inspired me/ I ain't just talking about singing and dancing/ I was taught life and manhood by black men/ So I'm a product of that understanding/ And a small part of me feels like I am them"
He's a Muslim and has been practicing Islam for the past nineteen years.
Read more about this topic: Brother Ali
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