I’ve tried to get this review started five times now, but I just don’t know how to introduce the fact that Brother Ali is fucking ridiculously talented. Or to find a way to talk about his recently released EP The Truth Is Here without sounding like a Rhymesayers Stan (my previous P.O.S. post doesn’t help). And believe me, there are plenty of Stan’s out there.

Find a white girl (or Dank Lucas) that listens to independent hip-hop and you’ll probably find somebody deeply rooted in the church of Slug (of Atmosphere). Now of course true heads (yes, Dank is included in this category as well) can connect Slug’s lineage to some of the greatest that have ever done it, as well as some of the most promising today. But there is that little pocket of fans that have no idea (or even the ability to recognize) the brilliance that is being made today (or that was made before they saw Atmosphere on MTV) in hip-hop. That makes me a little bitter.

It’s not the fact that Slug is the face of indie-rap (I wouldn’t mind if he was the face of rap all together), it’s just that somebody that listens to Asher Roth probably has an Atmosphere t-shirt. Quite a few Atmosphere fans probably don’t even own any other hip-hop records. So while Slug is guilty by association to his fans, his labelmates and the genre as a whole are often guilty by association through him.

Pretty fucking ridiculous, right? Well I’m a cynical neurotic asshole who chooses to have as little contact with human beings as possible, so on a daily basis I must protect myself from perpetuating the things I hate about them. And today’s topic just so happens to be hip-hop. So as I sing my praises for a particular piece of hip-hop, I must battle the urge to stab myself in the chest when I think that some hipster-herbtastic-fringe fan likes the same music as me.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Can it be all so simple? Inside my brain, no. Even when I enjoy something, I don’t fully enjoy it. But Brother Ali’s music is something that comes close to being fully enjoyed.

Other than Pharoahe Monch, nobody’s rhyme patterns even come close to Ali’s. While Monch is jagged with his delivery, Ali manages to deliver complex syllable groupings with unparalleled fluidity. His voice is as authoritative as we’ve heard in the last decade and his subject matter ranges from the personal to the political, from battle rhymes to pick-up lines. And he does it  all with a sense of humility and graciousness.

The musical backdrop on The Truth Is Here is once again handled by Ant (from Atmosphere, in case you haven’t heard). There is definitely a difference between the beats Ant makes for Slug and the beats he makes for Ali, and in my opinion Ali wins out. The drums hit harder, the samples are broader and the overall feel is more immediate. The exciting thing about this EP is that it might be a true launching pad for Ali. After two borderline classic albums and two amazing EP’s we now await his third full-length release dropping in the fall.

From what Ali has said recently in interviews we can expect outside production this time, and that gets my rap-nerd tentacles (yes, tentacles) perked in excitement. Now, I have the utmost respect for Ant and his production credentials, but for fuck-sakes, did you hear how dope Ali sounds over some Jake One production? I’m not quite sure who the other producers are going to be, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have to worry about the Brother picking any suspect beats.

So I guess in a roundabout way I actually did talk about the album….okay, so I didn’t. But I did get to mention Ali’s dopeness. I also made a quick disparaging remark about that silly little white boy everybody is crazy about at the moment. And I got to compare Dank Lucas to white girls.

And that folks, is good enough for me.