A Quote by Mos Def
I began to fear that Mos Def was being treated as a product, not a person, so I've been going by Yasiin since '99. At first it was just for friends and family, but now I'm declaring it openly.
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So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you're talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent.
Look at music: I've always loved hiphop and rap, and now there's this whole progressive movement, with De La Soul and Mos Def, Common. It's some of the best stuff around.
As opposed to getting into arguments about, well, these folks have been treated fairly so now we're going to be doing things that, very easily in the minds of a lot Americans feel like, "Now I'm being treated unfairly."
Fear! Fear again, for the first time since his 'teens. Fear, that he thought he would never know any more. Fear that no weapon, no jeopardy, no natural cataclysm, has ever been able to inspire until now. And now here it is running icily through him in the hot Chinese noon. Fear for the thing he loves, the only fear that can ever wholly cow the reckless and the brave.
I'm retiring the Mos Def name after 2011. I'm actually doing it.
I might ask about the first time a person heard a song that they really responded to, like when I asked Mos Def when he first "got" hip-hop and he went into this memory about how hearing someone rap really affected him. He wasn't simply remembering the event. It was almost like he was occupying that space again. When you can really transport an interview subject like that, your readers can feel it and it helps them to connect with the artist.
People consider Black Star a great album, and I think it's a classic album. But the fact is, both me and Mos Def have made better albums since Black Star.
I just never have really been the kind of person that's out in public being inappropriate, I guess. I like to have fun as much as the next person but I tend to do it in private and just hang out with close friends. If I'm going to go out, I'll just do it with my really good friends.
And, for example, like, when you're having the conversation with your child about getting their driver's license. Well, a white family - their biggest fear is just that you're driving safely and that they're minding the rules of the road, whereas a black family - their biggest fear is that their child is going to get pulled over and treated unfairly for a reason that they won't understand.
I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18.
My filmmaking background has really just been making movies with my friends since I was 12 years old. That's how I feel I learned how to tell a story visually, by just going out with a video camera and making movies with my friends and family.
My mom, my father, my little sisters, and my brother - I don't got that much family. I'm not really a family person. I just do my own thing. But I've just been spending time with my mom, especially since the [September motorcycle] accident happened. I drive all the way down there to Georgia just to check up on her. You just get tired of being that person that you thought you were. I don't feel no different. I see the music, because I made it. I don't really see the fame.
Mos Def is one of the most creative, intelligent human beings I've had the opportunity to work with. He is fun. The entire time, he would go in and out of different characters, just for the fun of it. Awesome energy.
It is rarely remembered now that socialism in its beginnings was frankly authoritarian. It began quite openly as a reaction against the liberalism of the French Revolution. The French writers who laid its foundation had no doubt that their ideas could be put into practice only by a strong dictatorial government. The first of modern planners, Saint-Simon, predicted that those who did not obey his proposed planning boards would be 'treated as cattle'.
Ever since the first 'American Pie,' I've always been happy to just have an opportunity, I just didn't think it was going to be with comedies. Now I really like it.
I've always been a person that's totally comfortable with my sexuality and showing my affections with my guy friends. At the end of the day, your guy friends are very important; they're the guys that are always going to be there. It's just you being a friend to me and I'm being a friend to you.
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