Yasiin Bey was born Dante Terrell Smith on December 11, 1973, in Brooklyn, New York City,[8]the son of Sheron Smith and Abdulrahman Smith.[9] The eldest of 12 children and step-children, he was raised by his mother in Brooklyn, while his father lived in New Jersey.[10]
Bey attended middle school at Philippa Schuyler Middle School in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where he developed his love for acting.[10][11] After returning from filming You Take the Kids in Los Angeles, and getting into a relationship with an older girl, Bey dropped out of high school during sophomore year.[10] Growing up in New York City, during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s, he has spoken about witnessing widespread instances of gang violence, theft, and poverty in society, which he largely avoided by working on plays, Off-Off-Broadway and arts programs.[11] In a particularly traumatic childhood experience, Bey witnessed his then five-year-old younger brother, Ilias Bey (born Denard Smith), get hit by a car. Ilias later adopted the alias DCQ and was described by Bey as "my first partner in hip hop".[11]
Bey began his music career in 1994, forming the group UTD (or Urban Thermo Dynamics) along with younger brother DCQ and high-school friend Ces.[12] In 2004, they released the album Manifest Destiny, their first and only release to date. The album features a compilation of previously unreleased and re-released tracks recorded during the original UTD run.[13]
In 1996, Bey emerged as a solo artist and worked with De La Soul and Da Bush Babees, before he released his own first single, "Universal Magnetic" in 1997.[14][15]
Bey released his solo debut album Black on Both Sides in October 1999, also through Rawkus.[19][20] The single "Ms. Fat Booty" charted,[18] while the album reached #25 on the Billboard 200.[21]Around this time, he also contributed to the Scritti Politti album Anomie & Bonhomie.[22][23]
Yasiin Bey performing at Rock the Bells in New York
On November 7, 2007, Bey performed live in San Francisco at The Mezzanine venue. The performance was recorded for an upcoming "Live in Concert" DVD. During the event, he announced that he would be releasing a new album to be called The Ecstatic.[29] He performed a number of new tracks; in later shows, he previewed tracks produced by Madlib and was rumored to be going to Kanye West for new material. Producer and fellow Def Poet Al Be Back revealed he would be producing on the album as well.[30] The album was released on June 9, 2009; but only Madlib's production had made the cut, along with tracks by Preservation, The Neptunes, Mr. Flash, Madlib's brother Oh No, J. Dilla, and Georgia Anne Muldrow.
Bey appears alongside Kanye West on the track "Two Words" from The College Dropout album, the track "Drunk and Hot Girls" and the bonus track "Good Night" off West's third major album, Graduation. In 2002, he released the 12" single Fine, which was produced by West and featured on the Brown Sugar soundtrack.[31]
In 2007, Bey appeared on Stephen Marley's debut album Mind Control on the song "Hey Baby". He also appeared on the debut album from Apollo Heights on a track titled "Concern". That October, he signed a deal with Downtown Records and appeared on a remix to the song "D.A.N.C.E." by Justice.[32]
In April 2008, he appeared on the title track for a new album by The Roots titled Rising Down. The single, "Life In Marvelous Times", was made officially available through iTunes on November 4, 2008, and was also available for stream on the Roots' website Okayplayer.
In 2009, he worked with Somali-Canadian rapper K'naan to produce the track "America" for K'naan's album Troubadour.[33]
In April 2009, Bey traveled to South Africa for the first time, and performed with The Robert GlasperExperiment at the renowned Cape Town International Jazz Festival. He treated the South African audience with an encore, introduced by his own rendition of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, followed by a sneak preview of the track "M.D. (Doctor)".[34]
Bey has designed two pairs of limited edition Converse shoes. The shoes were released through Foot Locker stores on August 1, 2009, in limited amounts.[35]
In late 2009, he created his own clothing line with the "UNDRCRWN" brand called the "Mos Def Cut & Sew Collection". The items were released in select U.S. stores and almost exclusively on the UNDRCRWN website.[36] That year, he was among the MCs aligned with American entrepreneur Damon Dash's DD172 and collaborating with American blues rock band the Black Keys on the Blakroc album, a project headed by the Black Keys and Damon Dash.[37]Bey appeared with Harlem-bred rapper Jim Jonesand the Black Keys on the Late Show with David Letterman to perform the Blakroc track "Ain't Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo)".
In 2010, Bey featured on the first single, "Stylo", from the third Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, alongside soul legend Bobby Womack. He also appeared on the track titled "Sweepstakes". In March 2010, Bey's song "Quiet Dog Bite Hard" was featured in Palm's "Life moves fast. Don't miss a thing." campaign.[38]
In September 2010, after appearing on Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Friday track "Lord Lord Lord", Bey confirmed he had signed with GOOD Music.[39]Bey has been an active contributor to the recovery of the oil spill in the Gulf, performing concerts and raising money towards repairing its damages. In June 2010, he recorded a cover of the classic New Orleans song originally by Smokey Johnson, "It Ain't My Fault" with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Lenny Kravitz and Trombone Shorty.
In September 2011, the rapper announced that he legally changed his name to Yasiin Bey and would go by that name, retiring his Mos Def moniker (short for "Most Definitely").[40][41][42] Bey told a reporter "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."[43] Bey also stated "Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. ...it's time to expand and move on."[44] Yasiin is a name in the Qur'an's 36th surah and was important to the rapper who converted to Islam in his teens. Bey said the name change would eliminate "having any moniker or separation between the self that I see and know myself as."[44]
Shortly after the name change announcement, Bey recorded as the narrator of the children's hip hop musical, Pacha's Pajamas: A Story Written By Nature.
In January 2012, it was reported that Bey and Talib Kweli had begun "to resurrect" Black Star.[45] In 2015, Bey was featured on A$AP Rocky's second studio album At. Long. Last. ASAP, on the track "Back Home", alongside Acyde and the deceased A$AP Yams.[46] Bey again revived his Mos Def moniker for two new songs in August 2015, titled "Basquiat Ghostwriter" and "Sensei on the Block".[47][48]
On January 19, 2016, Bey announced his retirement from both the music and film industries on Kanye West's website: "I'm retiring from the music recording industry as it is currently assembled today, and also Hollywood, effective immediately. I'm releasing my final album this year, and that's that."[49] After announcing his retirement, he expressed gratitude to everyone who has supported him over the years and revealed his intention to enter the fashion industryand complete a handful of films.[50] Bey also confirmed he still planned to release a collaborative project with Ferrari Sheppard called Dec 99th.[50]
In October 2016, a planned concert in London was cancelled due to travel restrictions imposed on the artist;[51] other European dates suffered the same fate.[52] On October 14, Bey posted a video to Facebook where he announced that he was still planning to retire: "I'm retiring for real this year, this week. With the 17th anniversary of Black on Both Sides being released, I am grateful to have had the career that I have been able to enjoy."[53][54] He also announced one last concert which he said he would be live streaming from Cape Town, South Africa.[55] In November 2016, he was granted the ability to leave but not reenter South Africa and was put on "South Africa's 'undesirable persons' list". He said he would perform one show in Harlem and three in Washington D.C. after leaving South Africa. He announced that Dec 99th, his final album, would be released on December 9. He released three singles from it, "Local Time", "N.A.W." and "Seaside Panic Room".[56] On December 5, 2016, he announced the title of two albums, Negus in Natural Person and As Promised, the latter of which is a collaboration with Southern hip hop producer Mannie Fresh, initially titled OMFGOD.[57] In 2017, his claims of retirement were seen as questionable as he played shows on September 13, at the Fox Theater in Oakland as part of Black Star and performed on Gorillaz' Humanz World Tour, performing "Stylo" with Peven Everett, who filled in for Bobby Womack, who died in 2014. He also has yet to release or announce a release date for the last two albums of his career.[58][59]
In February 2018, Bey announced, on stage, a new Black Star studio album, produced by Madlib, would be released in 2018. However, no specific release date was made available. Later on that year, Bey appeared on the titular track of Kids See Ghosts, the collaborative effort of Kanye West and Kid Cudi. In March 2019, he debuted his album, ንጉሥ (pronounced Negus) at a listening session as part of Art Basel Hong Kong. In a press release, he said that the album "will continue to unfold as a series of varied installations around the world". He has no plans of releasing the album digitally or physically.[60]
On June 28, 2019, Bey appeared on Bandana, an album by Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, alongside Black Thought, on a track named "Education". In November 2019, he stated that unreleased music, such as his collaborative album with Mannie Fresh, was still "on deck" for release.[61] In 2021, he launched "The Midnight Miracle" podcast on Luminary, along with Dave Chappelle and Talib Kweli.[62] In April 2022, a release date for the long-awaited Black Star project was officially announced. The album titled No Fear of Time was released via Luminary on May 3, 2022.[63]
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Yasiin Bey
