''' RAPPER *ALI B'S* TEARS '''
OVER AND OVER, THE RAPPER has succeeded in getting white and non-white Dutch audience to cry with each other.
*In May, last year, a song he performed on TV talk show about about his relationship with his sons had the entire country weeping. Yes, the whole country of Netherlands*.
Rather, it is a 34-year old rapper, comedian and reality television host named Ali Bouali, better known by his stage name Ali B.
In the mid-2000s, after Mr. B had a string of hip-hop hits, talk shows began inviting him to represent *Moroccan Dutch Youth*. He turned out to be not only FUNNY but an absolute SWEETHEART.
He took part in education programmes on climate change; he recorded with the country's most successful white pop artist; he performed confessional one-man shows.
*During Queen's Day celebrations in 2005, he gave the Netherlands' Queen Beatrix an impromptu hug*.
Eight years later, at the inauguration of Beatrix's son Willem Alexander, Mr. B delivered the central musical performance directly to the new King and Queen.
By that time his deep eyes and comically intense stare had come to stand for the hopeful side of the Dutch integration story.
He is sometimes dismissively referred to as a knuffelmarokkaan, or.......huggy-Moroccan'' : the Dutch idiom implies that he is both a token and the squeeze toy version of a dangerous animal.
*But Mr. B also uses the term lightheartedly about himself drawing the sting*.
Mr. B's best work does not involve his own music at all. In 2011 he produced a reality-TV series in which he paired hip-hop artists with white performers from the classic era of Dutch kitsch pop in the 1960s and 1970s.
The result was a fusion of two musical cultures, one white and mostly working-class, the other ethnically mixed.
In the most often-cited episode, the rapper Kleine Viezerik ''[Dirty Little Man]'' collaborated with a former Eurovision contestant, Willeke Alberti.
At the end of her performance he removed his sunglasses to show *tears streaming down his face*.
The cross cultural appeal has made Mr. B an icon in every Dutch demographic -including supporters of Mr. Wilder's Party for Freedom [PVV].
He is one prominent Moroccan-Dutch figure whom the PVV 's leaders never attack. But two years ago, when Mr Wilders called for ''fewer Moroccans'' in the Netherlands,
*Mr. B felt compelled to ask his audience whether they would like ''less Wilders''*.
As Europe's refugee crisis and the terrorist attacks in Paris increase hostility towards Muslims and immigrants, Mr. B is finding harder and harder to stay above the fray.
In late October last year, Mr B returned to Almere, the town where he spent his teenage years, to stage a preview of his latest one-man show, ''Je suis Ali B.
Alimere is a planned town 30km [20 miles] east of Amsterdam with rows of housing blocks and streets ludicrously named after cultural celebrities: Isadora Duncanweg, Lucille Ballstraat and so forth.
The central pedestrian zone is a modest playground of glass and concrete.
A few flee hipsters fleeing Amsterdam's high property prices have begun moving in for the last few years.
On any Thursday night the promenades are full of window-shoppers speaking everything from Turkish to Twi and Papiamento.
The Honour and Serving of the latest Operational Research on great Icons the world over continues. Thank Ya all for reading and sharing forward and see you on the following one.
*Students Rabo, Haleema, Saima, or Dee to ensure that Ali B is informed of the highest regard and esteem of !WOW! -the World Students Society.
We hope to see him and his family on !WOW! and Twitter-!E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011*.
With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of Netherlands. See Ya all on !WOW! -the World Students Society and Twitter !E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011:
''' The Fly Dutchman '''
Good Night and God Bless
SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless
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