Background: Rucka Rucka Ali’s legal name is unknown, as is his true race and ethnicity. This may be seen as ironic, since his musical career has involved a heavy dose of racial stereotypes. Ali has been rumored to be many different races and ethnicities, including White, Chinese, Mexican, Jewish-Israeli, Arab-Muslim, Black, and Russian. His early childhood information is unavailable, although his career is certainly notable. Career: Early Notes- Before his radio debut, Rucka Rucka Ali was a Myspace Music novelty, earning a substantial fanbase with his unusual blend of rap and comedy. He recorded his rap songs in Waterford, MI, at Pinegrove Studios, with his partner Randy Nelsen. Many saw humor in Ali’s lyrics, while many others found his lack of skill to be the object of his comedic appeal. Still others saw charm in Ali’s image and personality. Ali was known to post comments on the daily Myspace Video featured videos, often in all-capitals, exclaiming that the videos were racist towards Blacks or Asians. Consequently, Ali’s comments attracted about 1,000 visits per day to his Myspace Music page. Although Ali’s comments were directly related to the videos he was posted under, his comments were frequently marked as spam. On February 14, 2008, Rucka Rucka Ali’s Myspace Music page was deleted by Myspace moderators. His new (current) Myspace Music page was launched later on that day to which it my spammed by anti racist policians. Radio- In August of 2008, Rucka Rucka Ali contacted MC Serch (frontman of rap group 3rd Bass, host of Vh1’s Ego Trip’s The White Rapper Show and Miss Rap Supreme) via e-mail regarding an internship at Serch’s weekly radio program on Detroit’s Hot 102.7 WHTD, Serchlite Saturdays. Serch invited Ali to intern on his show, and Ali began to attend the radio broadcasts on Saturday evenings. Serch quickly noticed Ali’s outrageous humor, as well as his cult-like following on Myspace Music. Serch gave Ali a 60-second segment on his show, titled “Rucka’s Rant of the Week.” The segment quickly became a major attraction on the program. It was broadcast at 9pm, every Saturday. Additionally, Serch asked Ali to write and record song parodies for them to air on the radio program. Ali complied, and one week later they aired “I Can Do Whatever I’m White,” a spoof of TI’s hit single “Whatever You Like.” Since then, Ali has written and recorded tens of song parodies of current rap and pop hit singles. The song parodies were played on the air on Serchlite Saturdays, often attracting angry phone calls to the station by offended listeners. The song parodies were played at 9:45pm every Saturday evening, until May 2009, when both Serch and Ali left Hot 102.7 WHTD. Serch moved to Miami, FL, where he currently is a full-time radio personality. Ali began to work at a Flint, MI, radio station, Club 93-7 WRCL. Music & Videos- After Rucka Rucka Ali began to write and record song parodies for radio broadcast in August of 2008, he virtually switched his entire musical direction from original rap songs to rap- and pop-spoofs. His first song parody, “I Can Do Whatever I’m White” (a spoof of TI’s “Whatever You Like”) accumulated over one million views on Youtube. MC Serch, then Ali’s radio co-host, invited Ali to post his future song parodies onto his Youtube network, SerchliteTV. Ali accepted the invitation, and posted tens of song parodies onto SerchliteTV. His biggest success came in July of 2009 with “Ching Chang Chong,” a spoof of Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow,” which was heavily based on Asian stereotypes. The song’s video was accumulating over a quarter-million views per day when it was deleted by Youtube moderators, for the reason that it violated Youtube’s Community Guidelines for Hate Speech. Several days later, Ali loaded a “censored” version of the “Ching Chang Chong” music video, in which the Asians’ eyes were blocked by black bars, and all Asian country names were blocked by a “beep.” Ali’s fans, mostly in their teens and early-twenties, were delighted by the gesture. Some of the older fans commented on the video, saying that they saw resemblance to comedian Lenny Bruce. That same month, SerchliteTV was suspended. Since then, Ali has been loading new song parodies onto his personal Youtube account, RuckaRuckaAli. In addition to his song parodies, Ali began posting video blogs, in which he addressed the actions taken by Youtube moderators. Also, Ali posted an original rap song, titled “Send That Bitch A Kissy Face” which featured his long-time musical affiliates Dali Llama and Tickle Man. On October 25, 2009, he was the #76 most viewed comedian on Youtube. Television- In July of 2009, Rucka Rucka Ali was hired by Happy’s Pizza Inc to write and perform a jingle for a television advertisement. Ali’s jingle, titled “Happy’s Pizza Lost They Mind,” was used for a 3D-animated advertisement, in which a cartoon character lip-synced to Ali’s voice. The advertisement was on heavy rotation in Michigan, most often on the Fox2 network, throughout the remainder of the summer of 2009. Controversies- In August of 2009, Rucka Rucka Ali got involved in a feud via Myspace comments with Interpol frontman Paul Banks. The feud was apparently over Rosalea Krakovski, former host of MTV Base program “The Ros & Vulcan Show,” and Banks’ ex-girlfriend. According to Ali’s Myspace blog entry, “Herro, I’m Yerro, Big Chinese Rapper,” Banks contacted Ali via the internet with a high level of hostility after Krakovski had sent Ali a picture of her own near-nude bottom half with “Rucka” written across her leg. Ali writes in the blog entry that “[Interpol is] prominent among closet-case generic 70’s-esque one-riff ‘indie rawk’-listening faggots. Real solid, solid, mediocre rock.” Banks replied to the blog entry with a comment saying “Fuck you.” Ali referred to Banks in several songs thereafter, including his spoof of Keri Hilson’s “Knock You Down,” titled “Crips & Bloods,” in which Ali exclaims “Ayo Paul Banks, your girl has seen my dick.” and his spoof of Jay-Z’s “Run This Town,” titled “Fuck Kanye,” in which Ali explains, “[‘faggot’ is] a word I need just for people in general, like the lead singer of Interpol.” The comment archives on Ali’s Myspace Music page show frequent feuds with Banks. Also youtube deletes his accounts and music often. Current- Rucka Rucka Ali now independently operates with Pinegrove Records’ Randy Nelsen, loading videos onto YouTube and listing songs on iTunes. The latest venture, Rucka’s World, is a website designed by Ed Words Design which will release Ali from YouTube rules & regulations. The website will concentrate internet traffic on a site that is not controlled by any forces outside of Rucka Rucka Ali. |
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