When Brother Ali’s EP taster for this came out back at the end of November, the monkey’s first thought was, ‘Damn, this is good!’ swiftly followed by, ‘But if the taster is this good, what chance has the rest of a seventeen-track LP got of matching it?’ As it turns out, such concerns were unfounded for the unheard material on Satisfied Soul is every bit the EP material’s equal and at times surpasses it.
An introduction from Yaasin ‘The artist formerly known as Mos Def’ Bey, is always promising of course and from that the LP segués straight into the opener and title track. This pretty much breaks down the state of things with Ali and his life at the minute over a lively beat characterised by b-boy drums and a spaghetti-western fuzzed-up guitars – and, well, whadyaknow, he’s a satisfied soul. Next up is the slightly mellower affair of Deep Cuts heralded by the words, “In the beginning was the word/ And the word was the message/ And the message was love” followed by an Ali intoning, ‘There is no god but Allah,’ in Arabic and it’s almost like a second opening track. An LP so good it has two openers? Pretty much, yeah. You could argue it has two closers too – but more about that later. This time the beat is a soul-drenched affair (there are a few of these – recent single and EP cut D.R.U.M. for example) and as with the rest of the album, the producer is Ali’s one-time labelmate Ant of Atmosphere who, I’d argue, delivers some of his best work ever here.
Across the LP, Ali delivers both autobiographical material and social commentary – occasionally on the same track such as reflective Cast Aside which mixes up painful experiences of being outcast due to being presumably albino and/or a white muslim over a suitably downtempo synth-laden beat with the hook, “I never understood why they thought I was no good.” Later he opines, “This country is a science project/ The old push their hate out; young internalise it,” though it’s not clear if he’s commenting on a USA that was about to fall prey to M.A.G.A. techno-fascism and naked transference of even more wealth to the already super-rich or Erdoğan’s Turkey (itself no stranger to extremist politics) where Ali now resides. Or, indeed, both.
The absolute high point of the LP comes with the almost drum-less arrival of Personal in the second half however which – as the title indicates – finds Ali bear his soul again. As elsewhere, his religion comes up but as on the EP, he’s not trying to proselytize. This is succeeded by hands down the album’s best track (a hilarious recounting of a couple of Ali’s real-life encounters with the great and good of American R&B and hip-hop) over the album’s best beat where Ant lines up Prohibition-era piano to bang out over rumbling bass and boom-bap drums. If you don’t know what happened when Justin Timberlake turned up at a Wyoming gig or how KRS-One responded when Ali spoke to him while on the Rock The Bells tour, you couldn’t have a better means of finding out. Then it’s the turn of the soul-soothing Better But Us which offers a perspective that will be familiar to the many who aren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
One more real biggie before the end of the LP is Head Heart Hands – the stand-out from the EP, the beat of which is on more than nodding terms with Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man. Oh yes, and what was that I said about two closers earlier? Well, the downtempo Handwriting – more musings on how it feels to be at the receiving end of prejudice is a closer ( at least tonally) if I ever heard one but maybe lyrically not upbeat enough. Enter Sing Myself Whole – another downtempo cut featuring an earthy bluesy drum break topped by synth chords and guitar as Ali, yep – you guessed it – sings us out. Did I say upbeat? Things gets pretty dark lyrically but this one’s ultimately about coming out the other side. And Ali’s such a humble soul that’s exactly what you’d always want for him. It might only be the start of February but rest assured this will be in the monkey’s top ten LPs of 2025.
(Out 14 February on Mello Music Group)