The son of choreographer Lee Theodore and holster/weapons designer Paris Theodore , Ali began studying music and dance at the age of nine. Ali is the great nephew of Hollywood singer/dancer Cyd Charisse , and his uncle Eugene Becker was the Assistant Principal Violist with the New York Philharmonic from 1981 until his retirement in 1989. After watching the Rock Steady Crew, Ali immersed himself in break dancing and hip‐hop.
Leaving school midway through his senior year, Ali formed a new group called the Next School, shopped it and got a record deal with Chrysalis Records . Shortly after, the group found themselves guest appearing on Yo, MTV Raps .
While signed as a writer/producer to Universal Music publishing, their film and TV department began noticing Ali's work and started getting him small placements in such movies as Pleasantville and American Pie 2 . Excited and inspired, Ali began to think seriously of focusing his career in film music.
After leaving Universal Music Publishing , he cold‐called every music supervisor, production company and Hollywood studio, telling them he was their guy for any genre. Six months passed without a single response. Then, he finally got his big break. A music supervisor who he had worked with on American Pie 2 was making Big Fat Liar and needed four songs the following day. A few weeks later, an executive working on Ice Cube 's new movie called Ali to do the opening title song for the movie. From there, Ali's film career took off. Over the next decade Ali and his Deetown team would produce and write songs for world premiere artists, including Miley Cyrus , The Jonas Brothers , Mary J. Blige , Natalie Imbruglia , Shakira , MOP , Rev Run (from RUN DMC), Fabolous , Jadakiss , Kool G Rap , Silkk The Shocker , Busta Rhymes , Natasha Bedingfield , Carolyn Dawn Johnson , Keke Palmer , Baby Cham , and Mya , among others.
Ali Dee and his company DeeTown Entertainment have gone on to write and produce music and soundtracks for recent movies, including Friday the 13th , Final Destination , Night at the Museum (1 and 2), Transformers , [ 1 ] Speed Racer , Ghost Rider , Iron Man , Daredevil , Sex and the City , Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Alvin and the Chipmunks , [ 1 ] whose soundtracks went platinum, spawned seven of the Top Ten iTunes kids songs, and garnered Ali the 2008 AMA Best Movie Soundtrack award. [ 2 ]
Most recently, song "Love Him" was featured during the Homecoming Dance scene in The Perks of Being a Wallflower.