“CHAMPION”

Brother Ali: I wrote that after we got back from Scribble Jam, feeling like, This Midwest hip-hop shit is incredible . We were at the forefront of that along with Tech N9ne, but I didn’t know Tech N9ne yet, so I felt like we were it. Eyedea was beating everybody and I beat Eyedea that year. Sage Francis ended up beating me but Blueprint was killing it, DJ Abilities was winning DJ battles, and our crew was dominant. We didn’t come from a place where anybody taught us that. We just had the desire, will, work ethic, and sincerity to do that. That was me feeling good about myself, the crew, and the movement we were building.

“STAR QUALITY”

Brother Ali: This is the approach we have. We’re stars, not because we’re traditionally cool, but because we come to serve the people. I will do whatever it takes, being my authentic person, to make sure that we turn this moment into something electric. That’s where my confidence came from. Rhymesayers all had that in common and I had a sense that it made us superior in a way where we didn’t need a chain, or car, or sneakers. None of that mattered. We’re just servants of the moment we’re in and that’s just better .

Ant: I used to make a lot of these fly type beats. Musab used to do some player stuff on them here and there and I enjoyed doing them, but they didn’t get used that often. I was also fucking with that sound for Felt 2 . It’s a little funky, fly, and a little R&B ‘80s thing. The music and his lyrics made sense together because we felt the same way. That’s the theme throughout this record and our careers, maybe. It’s right on time with the music and the lyrics because we’re thinking the same shit. I’m just not using many words.

“PRINCE CHARMING”

Brother Ali: When I was in high school, I knew a girl who had a possessive boyfriend and I was clowning him. I took cues from that, but it’s not a true story at all. Later, I showed that song to my wife, who was like, “This is a funny song and I know how you mean it, but there are women who are stalked in real life and there’s nothing funny about it.” I realized, That’s what you get for telling a story that’s not genuine to you . When I did The Truth Is Here andThe Undisputed Truth, I said, “From now on, everything will be from my real life experience.” When I stick to that, I don’t regret it. It’s still a well-written song. It’s also gradual, the way that stuff often happens. Somebody starts out and it’s like, “He’s almost too good to be true,” and you realize slowly, “Oh, he’s crazy. He is too good to be true.”

Ant: I was playing that beat and he thought it was interesting. I thought it was corny and cute, but he started messing around on there and it was making me laugh. I think he wrote that song with the idea of how I was laughing about it, but we had talked about dudes that were insecure with their women and shit.

Brother Ali: That was completely to make Ant laugh. I knew Ant liked plot-twisty movies and things that were dark and messed up but funny. I know that Ant got a kick out of Sling Blade, which is dope and dark...So I wrote that song in the style of humor that I knew he was into.

“WIN SOME LOSE SOME”

Brother Ali: I was trying to show a lot of myself and that’s a true story that reveals a lot about me. There’s a lot of the racial stuff in that song and my relationship with race is complicated. When I was a kid, people told me albinos were Black. As a 12-year-old, that made sense. All my friends, teachers who taught me about life, and my heroes were Black. My family was not intact and they’re White European Americans. I think that in their sympathy for me, in wanting to embrace me, and give me a home, adults told me, “You’re basically Black. You’re with us.” So I had a lot of confusion around it. In the song, I think that’s obvious. I was poking fun at myself when I repeated what I said to those guys. I’m thinking that if you look at me, you can easily tell that my genealogy is European, but apparently not.

At the time, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that people who didn’t know me were gonna hear this and talk about it. Certain journalists, especially white ones, wrote that I was a Black albino. They never asked me about it and I certainly never said it. They just assumed. Looking back on it, I get it. My name’s Brother Ali and I got that from being in a Black Muslim community. At that time, I lived, worked, and did everything in that small Black community in North Minneapolis. There was a 10-year period of my life where everybody I knew, worked with, worshipped with, studied with, lived with, was Black, for the most part. Everybody understood that this is a European American who’s albino. There was no need to explain it to anybody. What I didn’t realize was that there would be a need to explain that to other people.

I would have never gone into it, except for the fact that people started writing that I was Black without asking me. At one point, somebody did ask me and it was a white person. I got the strong sense that a clear cut answer was gonna mean something to them that it didn’t mean to me because they wouldn’t understand all the nuances. I was like, “I’m not answering that.” But if somebody writes something enough, it becomes “fake news” or an “alternative fact.” I still see people arguing about it. I would like to write a book about this. When the Rachel Dolezal thing happened, people asked me, “What do you think about that?” She overtly lied and wore a costume. She lied to people about who her parents were. Race is a complicated thing, so to oversimplify it does a disservice to everybody, but you can’t lie. Nothing good ever comes from a lie.