This free download is released in commemoration of the birthday of Malcolm X; please also check out the award winning video directed by Jesse Rosenberg on Vimeo or on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUmWhXCiWnY

Former U.C. Berkeley Professor Hamid Algar once called Malcolm X the best to ever come out of the west... that is a profound statement, if you don't know why that is, study who Malcolm was.

Malcolm X by Professor A.L.I. & Stormshadowz

This song explores the narrative of the Middle Passage and the intellectual return to Africa by those living in Diaspora.

Black Like Me

This song captures the narrative of a historic moment in the Bay Area.  It retells the story of Occupy Oakland, in the moment, while capturing the essence of the themes at play.  

Occupy Oakland (feat. Zion I)

This song explores the history and role of the Moors in the West.  It examines Moorish Spain and then turns its attention to the blood of the Moors woven in the tradition of early American history.

Ode To Granada (feat. Abu Nurah)

This song is an in-depth exploration of the an amalgamation of global resistance to a dystopian status quo/reality.  It pays homage to George Orwell and Animal Farm but also the Watts Riots and the Revenge of the Planet of the Apes.

Animal Farm

AN ODE TO ZAYNAB 
Lyrics by Professor A.L.I.
There will never be another, like Aun’s mother/Her spirit hovers, above me, I shudder/Hundred thousand horses, sound like thunder, I look upward, beyond the destruction/She instructs us, on how they all suffered/And describes violent deeds of throat cutters/Devils, who dared, decapitate her brother/And descended upon tents, like buzzards/To increase plunder, ripped earrings from his youngest/Daughter then left them with their heads uncovered/The same devils, killed her two innocent youngsters/And left survivors burnt, with thirst and hunger/Who stripped martyrs, stole rings and turbans/For spiritual relics, all while serving the serpent/Beyond discomfort, product of ancient grudges/A righteous house besieged, by stubborn usurpers/Satan’s servants in service to his devilish purpose,/She emerges from tents aflame, as devils disperse/They return, put her in chains, she recites verses/She spoke with eloquence, of the universes/just like her mother, with God she conversed,/It’s why Kufa stays cursed, her blood in its dirt/Her power usurped, their days numbered, stayed under/Their covers, but couldn’t escape from God’s justice

She was mercy for the lion born in the House of God/Where was her mercy, why was life so hard?/They stole her scarves, Wrists with scars/Chained to Karavan, to Damascus marched/ Survivors starved, Yazeed thought he was smart/Yet she’s so sharp, she spoke and sparked their hearts/He was outsmarted, by the daughter of a martyr/The mother of slaughter, the daughter of the prophet/The leader of hardship, an inspiration for artists/A role model for people who become innocent targets/The saddest night, she stood staring into the darkness/With progeny of the Prophet, that she guarded/And heard the horse rider, spoke with her father/Told him about the harshness, violence, Abbas’ arms/How throats were parched, how blades were sharp/How they took young Qasim and he’s torn apart/How, Akbar was stabbed in the back with a shard/How her sons, Aun and Muhammad’s, eyes went dark/How they killed her infant nephew, Ali Asghar/And how they slain her brother Husayn at Karbala/She was a matriarch who challenged the upstart/For speaking out, (Husayn!) Zaynab would be marked/Yazeed threw her in a dungeon with rusty bars/But Zaynab still shines, Fatima’s Avatar

An Ode To Zaynab

This is a free track that was made to bring awareness to Black Lives Matter and the current climate in the world regarding a disdain for minority lives.  

Black Superman

I wrote and recorded “The Pen” to introduce my audience and students of Hip-Hop in general to the concept of the double entendre and coded language in our (Hip-Hop) culture, while at the same time provide them with a critique of ignorance, which I believe to be the antithesis of Hip-Hop, which is defined by our community as “intelligent movement”, because one must be “Hip” or “in the know” to understand it and “hop” or move in order to live it, and ignorance is unintelligent and unmoving, and as a Hip-Hop artist and cultivator of this culture, I see ignorance as a tangible prison that diminishes our humanity and snuffs out our light as potential learned beings of this universe.

“The Pen” is a piece that asks the listener to stand in-between a sense of hope and a cloud of cynicism, hinging on how one perceives the word “pen”; it can either be a writing instrument representing knowledge or a slang-abbreviation for penitentiary, which is a prison.  So the pen respectively represents the freedom of speech on one hand, and on the other it is confinement to a cage, which hinders both movement and speech.


The Pen

A track exploring the role of beef in Hip-Hop featuring the legend Canibus.  Song is off of the second disc on the XFactor double-album.

Beef Stew featuring Canibus

In my effort to be a better herstorian, this first track leak off of my soon to be released Tamilmatic album is dedicated to the story of Valliamma, and it follows in my tradition as an artist of telling the stories of the women who never get credit for the impact they’ve made on the planet like Fatima bint Muhammad, Zaynab bint Ali, Assata Shakur and Nana Asmau, to name a few.  

Herstory is Valliamma’s story but it is also to story of so many other women, relegated to the footnotes of HIStory-- if they are ever mentioned at all.  The lyrics track her narrative and rightfully dismiss those who would usurp her impact, as their own.  The refrain extends beyond her singular narrative and poses question to the patriarchal hegemons, asking the following questions:

“Why does her name not in history?  
Why does she threaten? 
Why is she scary?  
The power of her spirit, why do your fear it?”

And then goes onto predict emphatically, invoking both Abrahamic & eastern apocalyptic imagery, that “Your leadership [patriarchy] lost, for she [the feminine] shall inherit!”


Herstory

The Comic Con is a song imagined by Husna, a budding artist, who wrote and performed the song as an 8 year old.  It calls into question the types of characters, who are sexist, stereotypical gender tropes, and challenges comic book writers to do better.  It features a guest verse by Professor A.L.I., who does the same for racial stereotypes in this form of media.

The Comic Con

Professor A.L.I. is an educator & M.C., who lives up to the quote that a Professor has knowledge and an M.C. has the audience.  

His brand of Hip-Hop, marries the best of KRS-One, Paris, Dead Prez & the GZA to socio-political, spiritual, and environmental narratives.

He also teaches courses on Hip-Hop at Bay Area Independent Schools, U.C. Berkeley and College Preparatory programs.

The Comic Con

Professor A.L.I.

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