I recently photographed one of my favorite hip-hop artists, Brother Ali, for ONE magazine during his tour stop in Milwaukee. As a throwback to my newspaper reporter days I also interviewed him for the mag. We spoke about music, the strength of Minneapolis’ creative scenes, and following your creative dreams. Some advice that I think can be applied to any creative pursuit:
“Everything is you. So the way that you paint or draw or snowboard or … it all has to be who you are. And then how far you end up going is 100 percent you. It’s all your work and your talent. It’s a mixture of your work and your gifts. Nobody else can do it for you and nobody else can keep you from it when it’s yours to have. I see so many people say, ‘I’m trying to make it,’ but they’re still in the emulating phase, you know? … You have to, first, before you can ever expect anybody to pay you any attention, you have to figure out the way you do it and work on perfecting the way you do things. And then don’t expect anybody to ever give you anything.”
