E21 The Spiritual Creative
In this interview, hip-hop artist Brother Ali explores what makes a successful artist, how to create work that speaks to others, and where creativity originates. He discusses what the touring lifestyle is like, how he grounds himself while traveling, and the importance of Islam in his life and in his creative pursuits. Ali describes his process for creating songs and albums, how he pushes himself to get out of his creative comfort zone, and the collaboration process with other artists and producers. Later in the interview, Ali dives deep into the role music and art have on informing the human experience and expression.
For two decades, Brother Ali has earned wide critical acclaim for his deeply personal, socially conscious, and inspiring brand of hip-hop. Under Rhymesayers Entertainment, he’s unleashed a series of lauded projects, establishing himself as one of the most respected independent voices in music.
Brother Ali:
Being creative is a spiritual journey, and it requires… You have to have spiritual reasons for doing what you're doing. When I say spiritual, I mean not material. And the material also includes status. So, if you're doing what you're doing to be powerful, wealthy, to have status, you're not going to be creative, and you can just forget it.
Don MacPherson:
A painter can create a work of art and never see people interact with it. Writers rarely experience their work with readers. A software engineer may never meet a user, but when a musician writes a song, records it, and performs it night after night, their work lives, breathes, and unifies. Today's guest is Brother Ali. For 20 years, he has been writing and performing around the world. In this interview, he shares his creative process, gives advice to people who want to be more creative, and he candidly discusses his successes, failures, and the role music plays in bringing us together. Ali, welcome to 12 Geniuses.
Brother Ali:
Thank you. Thank you.
Don MacPherson:
Let's just get started by talking about your occupation. Can you describe what you do for a living?
Brother Ali:
Well, interestingly enough, not many people know that I actually split my time and have been doing so for the last four years. What most people know me for is that I write, and record, and perform music as an independent hip hop artists. And for the last four or five years, I've been splitting my time between that and also studying and teaching Islam. I travel a lot for that. So, at one point, there's actually been several points where I thought about going to a particular university or center of learning or something like that. But the most traditional way to study a spiritual tradition is with a teacher. The idea is that the tradition doesn't live on the pages of books, but in the hearts of the seekers and the lovers, the practitioners, the knowers. So, the idea is to get close to them.
A lot of times when people go to universities like Al-Azhar, for example, is one of the big ones in Egypt, or there are big ones in Morocco and around the Muslim world, most of the time people end up studying a great deal of their actual book knowledge in the university. But then there also will be like a ecosystem of teachers that are around that area because of the fact that it's a hub, and they actually end up doing a lot of their most transformative study with those individual teachers, one-on-one or in small groups. I've actually never graduated from anything in my life. I didn't graduate high school, never went to college. And even with the Islamic tradition, I study it one-on-one with teachers.
I travel and I try to be wherever they are, like whoever the people are that allow me to be around them and welcome me, and care for me and teach me at the rate that I need to be taught, and the things that I need to be taught. Wherever they are, I try to, as often as possible, to spend as much time as possible in their presence. And then, when I'm not with them, some of them, we trade WhatsApp voice notes. I actually have daily conversations with multiple people around the world that I record them messages, questions, and things like that.
Don MacPherson:
When you're on tour, what does a typical day look like?
Brother Ali:
I usually wake up and go to sleep twice. Most days I'm able to wake up for the pre-dawn prayer, which depending on what time of year it is, could be… Sometimes, if I'm touring in the spring and summer, I can usually do it before going to bed because that prayer will start happening around four o'clock or something like that. So, a lot of times I'll stay up for that. but in the fall and winter, I'll usually wake up for that. So, wake up, wash up, pray. It's a pretty quick process. It can be done pretty quickly. And then I'll try to go back to sleep for a couple hours, and then wake up, shower. Most people have some ritual or thing that they do on tour regularly to just make them feel grounded.
Different people have different rituals, but for me, it's making coffee. I'm really into coffee. I bring my own, like brewing equipment and a scale, and I have this like Japanese hand grinder that's like porcelain on the inside. So, it grinds the beans perfectly. I bring a kettle. I usually will set that up and make coffee, but then you have to clean it all up. It takes a lot of time, but it really is… It really matters to me. And then also, I don't use beans that are more than a week old after they've been brewed. So, it's a constant process of searching out the really good local coffee roasters and finding good, fresh beans. That's one of the things that I do to ground myself. So, I do that in the morning. Then we usually will get in the van, most of the time it's a van. If it's a profitable tour, we'll have like the Mercedes sprinter van. If it's not, then we'll be in a, either a 15-passenger van, or sometimes even a minivan. And we get in and we drive to whatever the next city is.
Don MacPherson:
When you're on tour, do you write? Is that part of what you do, or are you just typically focused on performing?
Brother Ali:
It's pretty rare that I write. I started doing this just kind of exercise where I'll make a beat. Instagram gives you one minute of video time. Now they have IGTV, but prior to that, they’d give you one minute of video that you can post. And you could post multiple videos if you want. I was doing these kind of exercises where I would make a beat and then not write the song, but right on the spot, I would think of a few bars, record them, think of a few more bars, record those. And I would do it until I get to one minute, and then I would figure out some type of visual that can go with it and post those. So, I've done those on the road.
Don MacPherson:
When you post them, are you looking for feedback from people, or what's the reason?
Brother Ali:
I mean, it's mostly for me to have the exercise of being creative. I started doing it because I had a album coming out, and the videos and things like that were taking way too long. So, I just needed something to engage people and for people to come back and listen to. But I do notice that when I do them, they get a lot of traffic and they get… They're a good way to keep people engaged.
Don MacPherson:
What does a day look like? So, we talked about tour. What does a day look like when you're in Minneapolis?
Brother Ali:
Minneapolis, I get up at 4:00 or 5:00, or something like that, whenever that morning prayer is, but then I stay up. And usually, I do the majority of my study in the morning before my wife and kids get up. I usually will get a couple hours in, and then they get up, and then I usually cook breakfast for everybody and just help people get on to whatever they're doing. Then I'll be home with the kids during the day. The days usually aren't that productive in terms of working, but I'll usually try to get in an hour or two at some other point in the day to be creative, to produce. If the morning is about taking in information, the afternoon is when I write, or when I prepare, or record or… That's usually the output.
Don MacPherson:
And how long would you typically dedicate to that?
Brother Ali:
In a day?
Don MacPherson:
Right.
Brother Ali:
I mean, it would be really easy to dedicate the whole day to it. And there are times when I'm in album mode where we'll have childcare. It'll just be understood that I'm not going to be very available during that time. And so, that's very easy to go for 12 hours.
Don MacPherson:
Really?
Brother Ali:
Yes. No problem, no big deal. Yeah, it's actually really difficult to try to get it in, in an hour and a half or two-hour blocks during the day. That's really difficult to limit it to that period.
Don MacPherson:
Can you describe the process for creating a song?
Brother Ali:
I always start with the music. So, I'll hear music, and music usually grabs me because of the mood or the energy of it, or I feel like the emotion of it, the vibe of the piece of music. And then when I sit with it, I try to figure out, what was it that drew me to that feeling? A lot of the time I'll think, like, when have I felt this way? Or what in my life feels this way? And so, I'll write the song based on that. That's typically what I've done for most of my career. I recently have really been pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone. So, I've been releasing music for 19 years and I feel like I've gotten really good at certain things. And there are certain crutches that now I have.
So, the things that I worked so long to get good at, now those are the things that are holding me back, I think. Basically, the fact that I know how to write a song, a lot of rappers can rap, like the act of rapping a verse or to a beat, they're very good at that. It's another thing to be able to write a song, so that, how does it start? How does it end? What's the structure? Do you have a chorus? Does the beginning of a verse sound like you're beginning a verse? Does the verse end like you're ending a verse? In this way, regardless of what the song is about, regardless of nothing in the song is particularly stands out as being really special, it'll be presentable and it'll be easy to listen to. And then, when I have a bunch of those, I know how to make them to an album.
Regardless of what I'm talking about, or what I'm thinking about, or what I'm working on, I know how to make it presentable. But because of that, and that's something that takes a long time to be able to do, but because of that, I feel like I'm in danger of repeating myself. I know that I'm taking a certain amount of security in that rather than… There's a certain comfort in that that doesn't force me. I know that these lyrics don't have to stand on their own. I know that the beat, the vibe, whatever, the performance, that none of it has to stand on its own because it's all going to get packaged well. I've been challenging myself lately to get out of that. And I'm working with somebody right now that I can't talk about who it is just yet, but I'm doing an entire project with a person who's completely opposite of me and everything that I've done, and at least in my understanding. So, I'm used to working in a way that's really efficient, and directed, and focused. I'm working with a person that just does everything completely backwards to how I do it.
I'm putting myself in a situation where even if I break through and make a song with a song structure that feels like, oh, the person that I'm working with will be like, “This sounds like a Brother Ali’s song. This is not going to be on the album.” All the songs that make sense to me, he's like, “No, this won't be on the album. You can put it out separately, but it's not gonna be on this project.”
Don MacPherson:
How does that feel? How does that feel to work with somebody like that, that they’re really pushing you?
Brother Ali:
I mean, my ego hates it. Yeah, my ego hates it. But that's the whole thing about being creative. Like, if your ego is comfortable, then you're not being creative. Like, you're just, you know what I mean? That's not art at that point.
Don MacPherson:
That’s growth. It sounds like it's growth.
Brother Ali:
Well, yeah, I'm inviting growth, like I'm hoping to grow. You know what I mean? And I don't know if I am, but I don’t… The thing is I don't know if this project will be good, but I know that in the future, it will… I know that it's impossible for me to not learn something. I see a lot of people that I've admired for a long time getting really stagnant and safe and boring, and their music doesn't have any edge anymore. And it's very clear that they're not inspired.
Don MacPherson:
Is the process for creating an album similar to creating a song, or how do you go about creating an album?
Brother Ali (12:58):
Usually you make songs and then there'll be a standout one. And you're like, “Okay, this is one of the pillars of the album.” And then, once you get like three, four, five pillar songs, then you start to realize like, okay, this is how this is shaping up.
Don MacPherson:
You know that, when that song is being recorded, you know that this is going to be a standout?
Brother Ali:
Usually, yeah. I think, yeah. You can tell when-
Don MacPherson:
What are a couple other standouts in your mind?
Brother Ali:
Oh, well, each album has them, and they might not be career standouts, but they're the ones that set the framework for the album. So, what would be examples of that? I have a album called Undisputed Truth, which is like, that's when I started this whole thing of me being like, “Okay, this is what my life feels like.” Undisputed Truth is my second album, my second real album. And after my first album, I went on tour a lot, divorced my first wife, went through a custody battle, didn't have anywhere to live for a while, and fell in love again, or fell in love for the for real for the first time. I have a song called Walking Away. That's about the moment where I'm telling my wife, my first wife, that it's over. I wrote it to one piece of music, and it was okay. It was fine. But then Ant was like, “These lyrics are great. This beat is not.”
Don MacPherson:
Ant is your producer?
Brother Ali:
Yeah, Ant is the producer that I worked with for most of my albums. So, he's saying, "The words are amazing, but the music's not.” So, he starts just playing different pieces of music. And then he plays this one that's really like quiet and intimate sounding. It's somebody whistling. It's just a person whistling and a Rhodes organ. I get four bars into rapping the words, and we both were just had goosebumps. It was like, okay, I think that's the moment that we knew that album. Then there's one on there where I'm telling my son that our family's going to… You know what I mean? That's another one of those. Oh, then there's one called Freedom Ain’t Free, where I talk about the, basically the idea of destroying your entire life, like dismantling everything you've built because you realize that this fortress I built is actually a prison.
And it's about that moment of like, oh, I'm about to destroy my whole life with the hope of being happy with whatever comes next, but completely not knowing that. That was one of the pillars. When we made that song, we knew it. We both just went home, you know what I mean? It was like, okay, we're done for today. A song like that, you just listen to it for three or four days until you get over it. Because you're just like, this was given to me by God. This was given to both of us by God. Then the fourth one on that album is, there's a song called Here, which is about the realization that you've fallen in love, and now there's a person who has access to you, your heart, in a way that you never intended to grant any… You know what I mean?
Yeah, those four songs, when those songs were done, then the rest of it, you're building it out. And then we ended up having more. Those aren't the biggest songs on that album. There's one on there called Uncle Sam Goddamn, which isn't even a person. That's a political song. But that's one of the ones that… That's a bigger song than those four songs. But for that album to be the album that it is that one on there that would be considered the hit, if you want to call it that the hit isn't the one that made the album what it is.
Don MacPherson:
So, you put your heart and your soul into this album. How does it feel emotionally afterwards?
Brother Ali:
Creating is, a lot of people talk about self-expression, but before you can express, you have to do self-exploration. So, real self-exploration means that you go into it with this idea that like, I think I'm this person, I have this image of myself. That I'm this guy that does this, and I'm like this, and this is what I'm like, and this is what I think, and these are my beliefs, and these are my opinions, and this is my personality. And to really explore yourself, you have to find things there that either… We're like that narrative, that image of yourself is not going to be true anymore. Either you find that you are lying about part of it, or you find something there that you never acknowledged that just complicates the story. That's the first part of a death.
You're not going to see yourself the same way afterwards. And if you do, then you haven't really created. That's not art, that's a sport, or that's a performance. But to really explore the self is like, I will not be the same person. The image of myself is gonna die. And then to express that, you're showing a version of yourself that is not the image you've been projecting either. So, the you that you've been performing dies too. So, it's terrifying. There's no way for it not to be terrifying. Because you don't know if, are people going to accept this? Are they going to get it? Are they going to reject it? That's why most artists say, like, “I would rather either be loved or hated”, but to be ignored is really.. That's the most painful.
Don MacPherson:
When did you know that you were going to be a musician or that you could make a career out of this?
Brother Ali:
Well, those are two very, very different points. I knew that I was a musician when I was a little kid. I've always known that. I've never not known that. I've always known that I was a communicator. To me, that's what it's really about. To me, it's really about communication. So, when I find myself splitting my time between studying Islam and then teaching it, the spiritual path. Studying the spiritual path is self-exploration and then teaching it as self-expression. The same with music. I'm doing the same thing that, like, I want to know myself and I want to connect with other people about knowing ourselves. That's what I really do. Making a career and profession out of it, that's when I met Atmosphere, that's when I knew. I had no belief in it at all until I met Atmosphere.
Don MacPherson:
And what year was that? Is that ‘99, ’98?
Brother Ali:
’98, ’99. Yeah, around then.
Don MacPherson:
And for those people who may not know Atmosphere, they're a big hip hop band...
Brother Ali:
Yeah. Well, Atmosphere is an underground independent hip hop group that started in the mid-‘90s out of Minneapolis. It's these two guys that are black, white, and native. I think white people think they're white. I think people of color know that they're something else. But they definitely present to the world as a white rap group. And they came along at a time in hip hop when things were really flashy and really polished. It was like right after Biggie and Tupac died. And so, things were really about the music industry. And they came along and just did it completely independently. They created a new way of making and selling music, but they also created a new type of music, a new subgenre within the hip hop genre. And there were others along with them. So, if people know, Run the Jewels, El-P from Run the Jewels was part of that movement as well.
And if people are familiar with Macklemore, Macklemore was never part of that movement, but Macklemore certainly learned everything that he knows from that movement, except for the pop sensibility. Basically, what Macklemore did is took that type of songwriting and that type of presentation and made it pop, made it appeal to pop. But Atmosphere is the flagship, most well-known, most respected, and certainly most commercially successful group of that whole movement. And when I met them, they weren't that yet. I was with them when they became that. I learned from them how to make your own music, go on tour, market it directly to your fans, talk to, meet, touch, interact with, form long-term bonds with the people that listen to you.
Don MacPherson:
Can you talk about how you collaborate with your producer?
Brother Ali:
We usually start by just having a long series of conversations. Like, I'll go over there saying, “It's time to make a new album.” And we'll start by just talking and I'm telling them all the stories from the last year or whatever. We usually really only get to spend a lot of time together when we're making music, we're making an album. So, I'm telling him like, what life is like for me and what's going on with me, and all that kind of stuff. And then from that, he's getting a vibe for like, okay, this is what Ali is about right now. This is what it feels like to be around him. And while we're doing that, usually we'll listen to records. And he'll be showing me things that… Beats that he made, or records that he's been listening, to or things like that. And he just gets a vibe, and then he'll make… So, I'll usually do some exercise songs. He'll pull a beat up and be like, “Why don't you start with this.” And he knows it's just going to be a standard Brother Ali song, easy to do.
But while I'm doing those, kind of getting my legs back and just getting my confidence back, he'll start making music that is more catered to what my vibe is.
Don MacPherson:
How can regular people who have regular jobs, but in creative jobs, take some lessons from your creativity or your creative process and apply them to how they work.
Brother Ali:
I mean, being creative is a spiritual journey, and it requires… You have to have spiritual reasons for doing what you're doing. When I say spiritual, I mean not material. And the material also includes status. So, if you're doing what you're doing to be powerful, wealthy, to have status, you're not going to be creative, and you can just forget it. So, you have to have some non-material motivation that's more important to you than the material stuff. Because the great moments happen when somebody is being honest in a way that isn't conducive to money, power, fame, accolades, status, success. That's the trick of the whole thing is like, the most successful people in music are the people that take the greatest risks. Most of the music industry are people that are just doing what they know will make them successful. And they figured out some formula or something like that. But not the true greats.
You know what I mean? So, the biggest rappers, you might not know it, but if you go to festivals, the ones that make the big radio hits or the ones that make the music that seems like it's not that… Migos, for example, I think Migos are very creative. If you're a literal person that just listens to the words and the topic and like what you could read on paper, you are not gonna hear that. And if you come from the time that I come from in hip hop, when the lyrics, you could read the lyrics on paper and see how amazing they are. Now, that's not as much the case, or at least with the Migos in particular. But they are very creative and they're doing a lot of things that are really amazing. It's just not in the words. It's in the vibe and the things they're doing.
Anyway, but they would seem like the biggest group, at least in the last like five years, maybe not at this particular moment. But I would go to festivals where the Migos were playing, but then J. Cole is playing, or Kendrick Lamar is playing, or somebody like that is playing. And when you watch the actual response of the audience, you would think that J. Cole is not as big as the Migos because everything they do for like a five-year period was a radio hit, was a number one record. Drake is another good example of that. Although I would say Drake has really great content, like, what Drake is saying is also really great. So, maybe he's not a good example. But the Migos versus J. Cole.
J. Cole has no radio hits. I don't think he has one. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. When you watch the actual audience respond to Migos and you watch them respond to J. Cole, it's very obvious that the audience, when they're listening to J. Cole, it's not about jumping up and down, like they're crying. They're tuned in to every single word that's being said. And he's standing there in basketball shorts and a t-shirt. You know what I mean? I wouldn't go to Target dressed like how he's dressed. You know what I mean? I don't know if he's had a haircut. You know what I'm saying? Like, he's just got dreads and a big patchy beard and like, it's just not about what he looks like. Those are the artists still that make the biggest impact, the people that take enormous, tremendous risks. For as crazy as Kanye West looks right now, he became Kanye West because everything he's done has seemed crazy. I think that I'm offering something that's worthy of being part of this conversation.
Don MacPherson:
We talked about failure a little bit, how it feels, but do you deal with it? How do you overcome it?
Brother Ali:
I mean, I did a political record in 2012, like an overtly political album. It wasn't a success. It just wasn't. And I put a lot of work and money into that record. I hired a band for the tour. I put more work and money into that than I have had put before.
Don MacPherson:
Is this Blank Tape Beloved?
Brother Ali:
Yeah.
Don MacPherson:
Okay. I was at that show in May of 2012. It was unbelievable. I am shocked that it wasn't well received. I thought it was the closest to James Brown I'd ever get.
Brother Ali:
That's the thing. I mean, it felt like a failure, and that's what matters for this conversation. You know what I mean? When I look back on that tour and that album now, I'm like, oh, that's great. I mean, the numbers were great. And everybody around me was like, “This is fine.” You know what I mean? But I thought I was doing something bigger and better. I thought I was making an investment in growth. And that's when I stopped growing in terms of my numbers and in terms of my outward career success. What I thought was going to be an investment in me growing is when I actually stopped. That was the thing that made me stop growing. And it was hard. I was bitter. I got bitter for a while. There's just no getting around it.
That was a bitter-ass time. I realized that I lost touch with gratitude, I lost touch with… I just lost touch of the real why of it all. I thought I was entitled to get back what I put in. And I wasn't. I made that album for the wrong reason. I made that album to impact other people. I didn't make it for me. I didn't make it to explore and express myself. I made that album because I wanted other people to explore themselves. And like, that's not right. You don't do that. I don't get to determine that. That's the realm of God. And that's the thing is like for… All creative people know. It doesn't matter what you call it.
You don't have to say God. You might not like saying God. Another person might not like that term because it's associated with all kind of things that… But we're talking about the unseen source of meaning. When you really create, you just receive it and you know that. It's like I receive this. Like, when I say those days where it's like, we just have to go home now. You know what I mean? Quincy Jones talks about getting goosebumps. And Quincy Jones says, “When you get goosebumps, that's your antenna to God.” That's what he says about it. So, he is like, “When we made Thriller, every song was goosebumps.” And he's like, “I've never had that before or after.” And he's done a lot of great things, but he's like goosebumps all the time making that album.
And then you release it and then whatever the unseen source did for you, the unseen source will do for others when they hear it. You don't have any control over any of it. When I told myself that I was doing like, “This is bigger than me and this is…” No, in fact, it was all about me. It was just about me wanting to feel important and wanting to feel like… And wanting to own my gift and all that kind of stuff. So, I deserved to fail for that record.
Don MacPherson:
How did you overcome it or maybe forgive yourself? You said you were angry for a while.
Brother Ali:
Yeah. Well, I was bitter. I tried to quit. I mean, I basically tried to quit. That's when I started studying Islam basically full time. I came across people, the spiritual teachers that basically just were able to explain the reality of creativity and creation and just what life is really about, what this whole path is really about, in a way that, that grabbed me from the cliff that I was on and centered me again.
Don MacPherson:
What's the longest tour you've ever been on?
Brother Ali:
It depends on what we count as a tour. The longest I've gone without going home was 12 weeks.
Don MacPherson:
That's a long time.
Brother Ali:
Yeah. But I had a two-year period where I wasn't home for more than four days at a time.
Don MacPherson:
Oh man.
Brother Ali:
So, we could call that a tour. We could say that-
Don MacPherson:
How old were you?
Brother Ali:
When I did that?
Don MacPherson:
Yes.
Brother Ali (32:08):
That was two years ago.
Don MacPherson:
Oh my goodness.
Brother Ali:
Yeah. I was 38, 39.
Don MacPherson:
I guess I have a few questions on that, but I'll just limit it to two. First, that's many nights in a row. How do you keep it fresh? How do you keep yourself engaged? How do you deliver to your audience the performance that they're expecting night in and night out?
Brother Ali:
I mean, again, so, when it's right for me, I don't have much control over the experience they have. I have come to realize that the experiencing that that they're having is from the source, and it's not from me. Because there's times when I thought… So, my experience of the show that you went to with the band, to me, I'm like, this is horrible.
Don MacPherson:
It was unbelievable. It was really an amazing experience. I tell people about it. Whenever I talk about you, I tell them about that show.
Brother Ali:
And that's a beautiful thing. And it has nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with me. You know what I mean? Because I'm sitting there like this is… This is probably the last time I will headline in first half. I was pretty sure of that, that day. You know what I mean? And then, yeah, and I mean that started my... just do it enough to keep the lights on. When it's right, I'm hopefully just receiving and giving from the most pure place I can, and I don't have any control over what the people get.
Don MacPherson:
I guess the next question is, how do you maintain a personal life with your family when you're gone so much?
Brother Ali:
It's just become our norm. You know what I mean? I don't have anything to compare it to. It's just very normal for us. I don't think it's good or bad. I think it just is. When I'm home, I'm really home.
Don MacPherson:
Present.
Brother Ali:
Mm-Hmm (affirmative).
Don MacPherson:
Yeah.
Brother Ali:
When I'm home, I'm the main caretaker of the house. I like domestic stuff. I like to cook, I like to clean, I like to do laundry. I like doing those things. I don't like doing yard work. You know what I mean? There are certain types of things that… I don't know how to fix things. I was raised by women and I really admired what they did. What they did really translated to love to me, like cooking, having a certain ambiance in the house, and things like that. For me, that's how love was shown to me. And so that's how I show love. So, when I'm home, I'm very, very, very present, at least physically, you know what I mean? But I still am an artist, and so I think artists are just really aware of our states. We're just in different states all the time. And so, sometimes if I'm in a really intense state, I might not be very emotionally present, but I'm serving.
Don MacPherson:
I want to switch gears to the music and society and what role music has. What impact on society does music have now and how has that changed since you've been in the business?
Brother Ali:
Pre-modern people before technology believed that whatever it is that we believe is animating the unseen cause of the physical reality is more true than the physical reality. That the universe had to have had a cause regardless of what they thought that cause to be. They all agree on the fact that, because everything in the material world is changing, that means that it has a beginning and it has a end. Anything with a beginning had to be caused by something. The cause of a thing is always greater than the thing it causes. So, we get back regardless of the tradition. Every human tradition had an unseen source of it all. That unseen source is the world of meaning. And that unseen source is what's reflected in the life of beauty, and in the language of beauty, and in the language of spirituality.
That's where meaning comes from and that world is what determines virtue, and right, and wrong, and morality, and ethics, and vice. That world is what should be obeyed. Now, the physical world is the end all be all. And in that world, the role of art, and music, and beauty is that we're the only people that are allowed to even talk about the unseen life of meaning. Religion has been relegated to… In a secular life, religion might as well be a hobby that you do in your garage. If your religion affects how you impact… If your religion impacts other people, then you're some sort of tyrant for that. What you've been able to figure out how to do scientifically, you can just do. And it's considered to be progress even though it destroys the world and it destroys people.
This modern insistence on materialism has destroyed culture. It's destroyed what the human being really is. It's destroyed hearts. And it reduces everything. The human being used to be understood to be a soul, a heart, an intellect, and an ego. Now it's just all, a human being is just a series of chemical reactions. And if we have to deal with the unseen, unmeasurable, immeasurable part of the human being, we’ll only talk about the intellect, the psyche. Just the psyche. No, you can't talk about the soul. That's made up. That's just somebody's wife’s tales. You can't talk about the soul. Psychology, the word ‘psyche’ means soul. It doesn't mean brain, but we reduce everything to what we can control. And the purpose of reducing all this stuff is because the material world is the domain of dominators.
That's the only thing they can control is the material world. So, they insist that life is only material because that's what they control. That's what their bombs and their guns and their systems control is material stuff. If we have to acknowledge the unseen part of the mystery of humanity, we’ll relegate it to just the mind. Because the mind can also be controlled by rhetoric and propaganda. So, we can control the mind. You can't control the soul. The soul doesn't really exist. The soul is just somebody's made up fairytale. You can't really talk about that. You can't really engage that as though it were real, as though it were more real. Pre-modern people believed that the unseen source of the world is more real than the world. The world of meaning, so psyche is a god.
The word ‘psyche’ is a god. That means the god of the soul. And psychology is the science of the soul, and it's been relegated to the science of the brain. So, we just talk about the brain and the mind. You know what I mean? The role of music is extremely important, and art and beauty in general. The language of beauty is the only remaining arena where the human being is allowed to acknowledge that the unseen, the transcendent is real. It's the only arena. Those are the only people that are allowed to do that. You know what I mean? That's evident in so many ways. You know what I mean? In so many ways, art is all we have left.
Don MacPherson:
Let me ask you just about your stage presence because I think it is really remarkable. You seem like an introvert to me, or at least a deep, deep thinker. Where does that come from?
Brother Ali:
The stage presence?
Don MacPherson:
The stage presence? Yeah.
Brother Ali:
I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. But I do know that…
Don MacPherson:
You're in command.
Brother Ali:
Yes, I do seem to be a commander. I'm definitely a leader. I was just made that way. And stage or speaking are the times when it’s… I teach a weekly class on Islamic spirituality, and it's almost a secret. It's like in a basement. You know what I mean? We started with like eight people and it's grown to like 40 people. It's like fight club. You know what I mean? I mean, there's people there that… My wife said to me one time, like, “You just cannot avoid that whatever you're doing or whatever you're thinking about, there's going to be a room full of people silently listening to you.” That's just something that was… You can't claim these things. And that's why I'm saying, it's one of the things you learned from Islamic, from all spirituality, but from Sophism is that it would be… To boost or to exaggerate your gift is an attempt to own your gift, and that's one form of being immodest or being arrogant. But also, to minimize it unjustly is an attempt to own it. This is what I mean when I say performative self-deprecation, for me to be like, “Oh no, it's not.” You know what I mean? No, that's an attempt to own our gifts.
Don MacPherson:
It's disingenuous.
Brother Ali:
Yeah. I don't own that. Like, I did not give myself that, I didn't learn that. You know what I mean? There are a lot of people that, in some ways, rap better than me. There are certainly people that look better than me and are in better shape than me, but they just weren't given what I was given, and I don't know why.
Don MacPherson:
Well, thank you for sharing it. Ali, this has been a fabulous conversation. Thank you for taking the time, and thank you for being a genius.
Brother Ali:
They say one of the tests of a spiritual person is to sit still while being complimented. So, I got nothing to say to that.
Don MacPherson:
Thank you for listening to 12 Geniuses. Thanks also to the amazing team that makes this show possible: Devon McGrath is our production assistant; Brian Bierbaum is our research and historical consultant; Toby, Tony, Jay, and the rest of the team at GL Productions in London make sure the sound and editing are top-notch. To learn how 12 Geniuses can prepare leaders for a rapidly changing business world influenced by shifting demographics, new technologies, and innovative business models, please go to 12geniuses.com.