Rucka Rucka Ali

Rucka Rucka Ali (Hebrew: רוקה רוקה עלי; born January 27, 1987) is an American rapper, singer, radio personality, comedian, YouTuber, and parodist. He has released eight independent studio albums, four of which have charted on the Billboard Top Comedy Albums.^[1] As of August 2025, he has amassed 526+ million views and about 1.9 million subscribers on his main music channel on YouTube.^[2] Though his songs are parodies, he has been banned from YouTube multiple times for content deemed by the corporation to violate its hate speech policy.^[3]

Rucka Rucka Ali was born in Jerusalem on January 27, 1987, to an Orthodox Jewish family. He has stated that he moved away from that lifestyle as he grew up.^[4]

Rucka Rucka Ali has released eight total albums, four of which have charted in the Billboard Top Comedy Albums chart: I'm Black, You're White & These Are Clearly Parodies (No. 6 peak),^[5] Probably Racist (No. 11),^[6] Rucka's World (No. 8),^[7] and Black Man of Steal (No. 7). During the weeks of July 31, 2010 through August 7, 2010, Rucka Rucka Ali held 5 of the top 10 spots on the Billboard Comedy Digital Tracks chart.^[8][9]

In June 2010, three British students were reprimanded after publicly showing Rucka Rucka Ali's music video for his parody "Ima Korean" to their class while studying different countries' musical traditions. One South Korean student was "devastated, upset, very offended, and feeling very lonely", being the only East Asian child in the class. An assistant headteacher, Len Idle, said the song was "probably racist". Rucka Rucka Ali subsequently used the quote as the title of his next album, Probably Racist.^[10] He replied within the music video "We're All Asian", sarcastically thanking Idle for his opinion, before mockingly stating that "he [Idle] was probably gay with AIDS".^[11]

On July 24, 2013, Rucka Rucka Ali released the song "Zayn Did 9/11" (a parody of Selena Gomez's "Come & Get It") to YouTube. The song mocked then One Direction member Zayn Malik, jokingly saying he committed the September 11 terrorist attacks, a reference to his British-Pakistani background. The single-cover features a silhouette of Malik in front of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center during the attacks.^[12] The song, along with an accompanying music video released several days later, angered One Direction fans and others.^[13] Business Standard called the song "offensive" and a "racist attack" on Malik.^[14]

In the end of November 2013, he was involved in another controversy after his song "Only 17", a parody of "Just a Dream" by Nelly, was accidentally played uncensored over the speakers at a McDonald's company in Wales.^[15][16] Subsequently, McDonald's issued an apology to the offended customers.^[17] That same week, Rucka Rucka Ali responded to the controversy on his YouTube channel by jokingly demanding a personal apology from the restaurant.^[18]

On August 13, 2024, a German right-wing YouTuber, known online as Shlomo Finkelstein, was charged and sentenced to prison for "inciting racial hatred" for creating a video where he set a Koran on fire and urinated on it.^[19] According to his podcast co-host, a contributing reason for his arrest, was when he played "What Does the Black Say" on a livestream.^[20]

Rucka Rucka Ali has stated that he is an objectivist, as in his 2017 interview with Dave Rubin on The Rubin Report.^[21]

At the end of the music video for his parody song "Life Is Over" (a parody of "Closer" by the Chainsmokers), released in October 2016, Rucka Rucka Ali revealed that he had attempted suicide in the summer of 2006. Noting that his death would have prevented the success of his later music career, he wished to send others "a message of hope".^[22]

• Official website