“I blatantly confront racism and white supremacy with my music and performance,” says the rising vocalist and rapper from Baltimore, Maryland.

With a mix of Baltimore club music, jazz and noise rap, Ali’s music blends an assortment of styles with critical theory. He strikes a balance between “turning up” and exploring deeper issues — such as living amid racism.

“I think people are over this s**t, this bubblegum music,” Ali says. “You need to go back and make music about the people again.”

Today Ali debuted his newest EP — called Mongo, after his middle name — via the Fader‘s website. A month ahead of the release, we talked about about white people listening to his work, how he feels biologically programmed to make music and what kind of “mainstream” he’d like to be.

Bandwidth: What does accessibility mean to you? Who should listen to your music? Who can listen to your music?

Abdu Ali: Who should be listening to my music? That’s a complex question. Who can listen to my music or who can interact with it… like my newer stuff, specifically, is made for POC [people of color] to raise their consciousness about social issues or self-empowerment — or just help heal. Whether they’re dealing with — well, I feel like we’re all dealing with post-traumatic slave syndrome or just the oppression of POC on the regular. My newer stuff is specifically for them. And then I have some songs that are just for people who are underrepresented: women, POC and queer, trans, intersex.

Then some songs, it’s just turn-up s**t — like, I got this new track coming out called “Did Dat” which is just being, like, patting yourself on the back like, “I did that! I killed that. I slayed it.”

As far as who should listen to it, I mean, everybody should listen to it. Everyone can benefit from listening to it; I definitely do. I made it, but I still benefit from listening to it, performing it. Everyone can listen to it. But when it comes to who is it for, that’s when I dissect it a little bit.

Warning: explicit lyrics.

Are white people coming to your shows, too? Do you feel some type of way about white people consuming your music?

You can’t really avoid that. Do I feel some type of way about them coming to my shows? Not necessarily, because it’s just positive energy and I welcome that. I don’t feel no kind of way. Do I feel some kind of way in a positive way when there’s a lot of POC and queer people there? Yeah, I feel really happy to see them. But as far as seeing white people, I just don’t feel no type of way. So, it is what it is. I don’t feel negative about it. Support is support and I appreciate that. But it ain’t like I’m bending my performance or bending my words to make them feel comfortable or anything. It’s still very much black music and for my people, you know. A lot of people be talking about that, too, but it’s hard because the more popular you get, the more… you know what I’m saying?

How do you see your music spreading?

Hmm. I like looking at it like levels — like you can be “mainstream” like Rihanna, or you can be “mainstream” like [Trina], but I don’t know, I do definitely want to get to a global level. My dream is to be able to connect to all black and brown people all over the world, you know? So I want to be global in that way, but “mainstream” as far as like, MTV Video Awards, and s**t like that, no. I don’t care about that s**t [laughs].

You’ve done writing before music and you’ve done a lot of visuals. Which is more important to you, the writing aspect or the visual aspect? Is it a combination of both? And a larger question: Are people more receptive to words or images?

Today, people are more receptive to images, for sure. I think back in the day it was words, but today, Instagram, Facebook, everything is image-based. When I make a music video for a song, people know those songs more than the songs I don’t make videos for. But what’s more important to me is the words and the production, for sure. I feel like they both need to be visceral and provoking.

Performance-wise, it has to resonate because every time I make a beat or something like that, I always think about how people are responding to it. I guess, really, the performance is more important than anything … I really, really think the performance is what solidifies me as a musician and an artist. It’s real. It’s not makeup. It’s no nothing. It’s no walls up.

How do you take care of yourself?

I don’t know, I ask myself that all the time. Because I’m always ready to be over this s**t. It’s hard. It’s like a drug, though. It’s a blessing and a curse. I can’t stop doing music — like, I really can’t stop. I have some, like, moments of fear, moments of discouragement, but I just gotta keep going. I always think of insects — like ants and bees, like they have jobs or whatever. One’s assigned to be a worker bee or worker ant… I feel it’s kind of like that where it’s just this innate, biological, thing of fate where I just have to do music.

So why is it that this week, as 9:30 Club celebrates its 35th anniversary, the venue is attracting criticism for allegedly whitewashing its multihued history?

The controversy began at the World’s Fair, 9:30 Club’s weeklong anniversary bash that kicked off Tuesday night. At the VIP reception, scores of people lined up to peruse an exhibit of 9:30 Club ephemera, spanning an impressive collection of photos, flyers, memorabilia and video from the club’s colorful past. But at least one attendee left the show with a searing question: Where was the black history?

Kristi Riggs, a stylist and fashion designer who lives in D.C., says she’s seen plenty of black artists perform at 9:30 Club over the years, including Erykah Badu, The Roots, Jill Scott and numerous hip-hop groups in the ’90s. But their memories are drowned in the sea of pale faces currently on display at the venue. That’s according to a post Riggs published on her Facebook page that has begun to circulate widely online.

“[I’m] so SICK of white people conveniently erasing the contributions of black people. Especially, the black people that have made you rich,” Riggs wrote. “I can count on one hand how many black faces were in the photo exhibit that covered the walls of the entire club.”

Riggs’ post has touched a nerve, racking up more than 100 comments. Many express disappointment. Some seem unsurprised. Others point to a need for more black-owned venues in D.C. A few call for a boycott of 9:30 Club.

Take a close look at the World’s Fair exhibit — open through Saturday — and you’ll find a colorful mosaic, but one that’s more white than brown. Flyers plaster the walls, harking back to punk and punkesque bands that played the venue once upon a time: the B-52’s, Einstürzende Neubauten, The Replacements, hundreds more. A screen plays live footage from a Jesus Lizard show. Fugazi’s gear occupies the stage.

Meanwhile, the bass guitar played by Trouble Funk’s Big Tony is displayed alongside Fugazi’s gear. Video of a recent Leon Bridges show plays on a loop, projected onto a massive cube. Tucked away in a green room, there’s a cardboard standup of the late godfather of go-go, Chuck Brown, not far from the hair dryer 9:30 Club purchased for the late godfather of soul, James Brown.

Artists of color aren’t invisible at the World’s Fair. But they are outnumbered.

Riggs is a longtime 9:30 Club patron who considers herself part of the venue’s extended family. She attended the exhibit’s VIP reception Tuesday night, hoping to reflect on nights she spent there — especially during the ’90s, when D.C. was still Chocolate City.

“I was really excited to go [to the exhibit] because the 9:30 Club has always been near and dear to my heart,” Riggs says in a phone call. “You always know when you’re headed to a show at the 9:30, it’s going to be a special night.”

But she was taken aback by the amount of space dedicated to white punk rockers. This 9:30 Club didn’t feel like the one she knew. “There were just so many voids, in terms of the timeline,” she says. Disappointed and hurt, she left the party, and typed out her feelings on Facebook.

To Riggs, the exhibit’s relative lack of melanin brought up bigger issues — namely her sense that today’s whiter, wealthier D.C. is overwriting its black history.

“Erasure is racism,” Riggs says. “[White newcomers] just want to pick it up from here, like, ‘Oh, thanks for creating this really cool city that we’re all clambering to move to — it’s really wonderful and colorful and fabulous. But we don’t need you anymore now. We’ll take it from here.'”

Particularly in the neighborhood 9:30 Club has called home for 20 years, that erasure seems ubiquitous. Once segregated, largely poor and African American, the U Street area is now lined with pricey residential buildings and teeming with white revelers most nights of the week. In an apparent act of swagger-jacking, an apartment building called The Ellington nods to the neighborhood’s jazz heritage, but shuts out lower-income residents with rents north of $2,500.

To many, the change stings — and sometimes it feels intentional. When black-owned U Street mainstay The Islander closed in 2013 following a bitter feud with new residents, owner Addie Green told the Washington Post, “It’s the kind of change I believe Washington wants.”

To some extent, 9:30 Club has participated in that change. I.M.P. Productions, the venue’s owner, took over operations of U Street institution Lincoln Theatre in 2013. The company immediately brought new life to the historically black, city-owned venue, which had gone underutilized for years. But the first bookings under I.M.P. control were white acts, a decision that seemed out of touch with U Street’s history.

About the all-white bookings, I.M.P.’s Seth Hurwitz said at the time, “We are going to try all kinds of things… But, ultimately, the audience for the Lincoln will be determined by what does well.”

Riggs suspects that as D.C. has grown whiter, 9:30 Club — whose spokesperson declined to comment for this story — has followed suit.

“As the population in D.C. became more white, their bookings became more white,” Riggs says.

For a venue with such a diverse history, she says, that feels like a slap in the face.

“Those African-American artists of all genres helped to cultivate the culture that is known as the 9:30 Club. It’s become known as a beacon of cool,” Riggs says. “And if they think that all happened because of punk-rock music, they’re absolutely mistaken.”

Top photo by Flickr user Heaton Johnson used under a Creative Commons license.

Simon Tam’s band is in a dispute. But it isn’t a battle of the bands. He’s fighting for his group’s name.

In early October, Tam comes to Washington to embark on the next step in his prolonged legal tussle with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. For six years, he’s been battling the federal agency, which has blocked him from registering his band’s moniker because it’s been deemed offensive.

Tam founded The Slants, a pop-rock group from Portland, Oregon, whose members are all Asian-American. When the patent office rejected his applications to trademark the band name on the grounds that “The Slants” disparages people of Asian descent, the bassist felt more than a little confused.

Tam decided on the band name after asking a friend to identify common Asian stereotypes. The friend suggested slanted eyes, and The Slants were born.

“It sounded like this ‘80s new wave band that maybe Debbie Harry or someone would front,” Tam says. “But [I thought] maybe we could use it in a way to engage people, to drive conversation and talk about it from our perspective.”

At the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this fall, a panel of judges will review whether Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act — which bans “disparaging” trademarks — violates the First Amendment.

“I’ll be there and I’ll be watching, but I won’t be allowed to speak, which is the deeply ironic thing about it,” Tam says, laughing. “You have some white attorneys arguing before some white judges about what’s offensive to Asian people, and the only Asian in the room will not be allowed to talk.”

Before Tam comes to Washington, I spoke to him about his battle over The Slants’ name and why he thinks trademark rules disproportionately impact minorities.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bandwidth: Why did your band form? Was it just because you wanted to make music or did you have a certain goal in mind?

Simon Tam: I had the idea for the band for a couple of years before I even had a lineup together. The whole thing was really because I saw a lack of Asian-Americans in the entertainment industry. When you think about Asian-American artists, most people draw a complete blank, especially when you think about Asian-American bands. That was even more the case eight years ago when I first started.

How has the Asian-American community responded to the band’s name? Has there been support?

The response has been absolutely incredible. Since Day One, we would get these emails and letters and care packages sent to us from Asian-Americans just thanking us for existing, for giving voice to their perspectives and struggles. Asian-American media, promoters — they’ve all been just absolutely incredible.

“I was like, ‘Who did they find that was offended by this?’ My attorney said, ‘Technically, nobody, but they quoted UrbanDictionary.com and it included a photo of Miley Cyrus pulling her eyes back in a slanted eye gesture.'”

What does “Asian-American” mean to you?

I think the term “Asian-American” is a distinctly political one. It means nothing in terms of geography to me because there is this certain social assumption that when you say Asian-American, people think Chinese, Japanese or Korean, and they kind of forget India or Cambodia or Laos or Mongolia. They forget that it incorporates dozens and dozens and dozens of completely different cultures, foods, languages and histories. And that’s one of the limitations of the term.

The term used in the ‘60s and ‘70s was generally “yellow,” and sometimes people used the term “brown,” but the term “Asian” was developed by the U.S. Census office. And the community just decided, “Hey, we’re just gonna take it. We’ll organize under this banner and use that to create some community power.”

When we use the term, I’m generally pretty broad about it. We include all kinds of Asians, Pacific Islanders, South Asians and so on, because I think that no matter what ethnic identity we bring to the table, we can all attest to similar types of racism and injustices we experience.

When did you first start trying to trademark the name? Did you expect to get pushback?

Our attorney first recommended in 2009 that we register our band’s trademark. Technically, brands or bands or get a trademark through use, so if you create a product, you are starting to develop a trademark. What we’ve been trying to get is an official trademark registration. Basically, the government says, “OK, we acknowledge that you’re the ones to use this, and you get certain rights.” You get a more significant level of protection.

So when we applied in 2010, my attorney said, “This is a very simple process. It’s just going to cost you a couple hundred bucks. The whole thing will be over with very quickly.” We never expected this to happen. In fact, I still remember the phone call I got from my attorney. He called me up and said, “Hey, we’ve got a problem with your trademark application. You were rejected because they said your name is disparaging to persons of Asian descent.” I paused for a moment and asked, “Do they know that we’re of Asian descent?”

We had just come back from this North American tour where we played hundreds of Asian-American cultural events. We played for diplomats from China, Japan — so I was like, “Who did they find that was offended by this?” My attorney said, “Technically, nobody, but they quoted UrbanDictionary.com and it included a photo of Miley Cyrus pulling her eyes back in a slanted eye gesture.”

So we decided that we needed to fight this — that they were totally wrong. Little did I know it would send me on this course that would last over half a decade.

“Anyone who registered a trademark for ‘slants’ was not a problem as long as they’re not Asian. That’s extremely problematic.”

At any point, did you consider just changing your band’s name?

There was a time in the beginning, shortly after we initially fought back against the trademark office. Being in court started costing thousands of dollars, and very quickly I said, “I don’t know if this is worth it.” But my attorney said this was a really big deal, because over the years, the law has been disproportionately applied to minorities, and that this was bigger than the band. He offered to work pro bono. With every attorney that has come on since, they work pro bono.

How has this law been disproportionately applied to minorities?

When we filed our second application — because we actually have two — we decided to present an ethnic-neutral application. In other words, we didn’t say anything about it being an Asian band. They went ahead and swiftly rejected it again. Basically, they gave us the same examining attorney who copy-and-pasted his response.

So we said, “You’ve registered a trademark for ‘slant’ hundreds of times in U.S. history. This is the only case in U.S. history where the government decided that ‘slant’ was disparaging to Asians. So what is it about this case that makes it different from all 800 other cases that have come before you?” He said, “It’s obvious that the applicant was of Asian descent.” In other words, we were too Asian to use the term. Because of our ethnicities, people would automatically associate the word with a racial slur and not any other possible dictionary definition. And that’s the fascinating thing. We can’t change the context of our band — that’s our actual race. Anyone who registered a trademark for “slants” was not a problem as long as they’re not Asian. That’s extremely problematic.

[Ed. note: Asked whether the Patent and Trademark Office’s rejection of Tam’s “ethnic-neutral” application actually demonstrates a nondiscriminatory policy, Tam says it’s the opposite: The examining attorney carried over information from the band’s first application, depriving The Slants of the reconsideration to which they’re entitled and ultimately rejecting them on the basis of their ethnicity.]

Why is it important to reclaim slurs for marginalized groups?

It’s effective. It’s a way to create social change. Reappropriation is an extremely powerful experience, and there are a lot of psychological studies about this. Whenever a group reclaims a particular term, there’s a shift in power from the dominant group to the oppressed group.

I think it’s also important because we should control the terms and how we’re addressed. If we decide it’s an in-community term only, we should be able to decide those boundaries of who should and shouldn’t use language in reference to our particular groups. It’s also important because it creates this general sense of social consciousness about our issues.

The term “slant,” unlike most racial slurs that you hear, is a neutral word. It’s not a disparaging term on its own. It meant something for hundreds of years, and then some racist took it by using the term “slant eye.” I would argue that we have every right to go back to the original definition if we want. Racists don’t have a right to use the English language for their own purposes. We should be able to redefine the process and get rid of that history.