Mos Def made quite an announcement backstage at Rock The Bells over the weekend. He told Peter Rosenberg that 2011 will be his final year performing as Mos Def. Come 2012, he will change his stage name to Yasiin, although don’t expect any hard feelings if you call him Mos out of habit. He told Rosenberg, “it’s a name that I cultivated and built. It’s a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my envirnoment. And I feel I’ve done quite a bit with that name, and it’s time to expand and move on.”
Mos Def also hinted at a new musical direction, adding that this name change mirrors changes in his own self-identity. He told Rosenberg the name change would prevent “any moniker or any separation between the self that I see and know myself as,” and the way others refer to him.
Mos Def is one of my favorite artists and biggest influences. I have seen a change in his music, and a growth in him as a person. The public has know him as Mos Def since he was pretty much a teenager, and he is now 37. Hit the jump to see the clip via MTV Sucker Free.
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