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 converted to Islam at age 15 and followed Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. During this time, Ali was selected to join a group of students who went to visit Malaysia to study the way that a more liberal Islamic society could have this peaceful coexistence between different religions.[2]
He has a son, Faheem, from his first marriage, and remarried in 2008.[citation needed] The song "Real as Can Be" off his EP The Truth Is Here says he also has a daughter on the way. In 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."[citation needed]
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.
Please watch the video and you will understand why I painted him!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M13sOLyn0ec
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