Mos Def In his own words

Mos Def is rocking out to an obscure seventies black punk band called Death. His arms are flailing, his head is banging and his feet are running in place. “Dude, is this the sickest shit ever,” he says to me, in his room at NYC’s Hotel Greenwich.

We’re basically moshing inside the posh Downtown inn famously owned by Robert DeNiro. Much to the chagrin of his publicist and his girlfriend, his energy is as contagious as the rawk that’s pumping out of the speakers. “Can you believe these dudes are brothers?” he asks before screaming the words to the chorus, “Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhh. Can you imagine seeing these dudes in 1974? Wow, man… Fuck…”

My interview with Mos Def has just ended and this moment pretty much says it all about my time with him. He is a candid and hugely passionate artist. His knowledge, beliefs and most of all his ability to relate who he is without blowing smoke up my ass, or his own, makes him a veritable dude’s dude.

In the entertainment business, the thirty-six-year-old is known as a triple threat: he can act (Monster’s Ball, The Italian Job, Be Kind Rewind), he can rap (Grammy winner, five albums) and, most of all, he ain’t taking any shit - especially from some suit who seeks to sell out his persona to peddle flavoured water. His principles are firm, and it’s those exact ideals that intrigue and inspire many - and frighten a few.

His latest and most stellar collection of songs, The Ecstatic, brings Mos Def to the upper plateau of artists making any kind of music anywhere today. For the kid from Brooklyn, it’s exactly where he should be and, more importantly, it’s where he needs to be.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mos Def, in his own words.

The New Yorker

Born Dante Terrell Smith in Brooklyn, Mos Def grew up in a three-window tenement apartment during a time that many in New York City would rather forget.

MOS DEF: I was thirteen, fourteen when crack hit the streets and it was just like, the atomic bomb for the Japanese, and then there's crack for my people and my generation. It hit a lot of people, but it hit us first, and hard. It didn't matter if you were using or if you was dealing or not, everybody was affected, it just was indiscriminate. You didn't have to be an active participant to feel the effects.
It was driving so many neighbours out of their minds and souls - and making others rich - driving them out of their minds and souls and sending them to the funeral home and penitentiary. There was a lot going on and nobody gave a fuck, the New York City local government... nobody gave a fuck about us, dude.

When KRS-One came out with ‘Stop the Violence’ he was telling them - he wasn't just telling us - he was telling the world: stop the violence, stop your economic violence, stop your social violence. Stop the bullshit because you're creating a generation of socio-pathic people.

Sure enough ten years later, you know, those anti-violence campaigns… we told you what the fuck was gonna happen. You know, we told you there would be the Crips and the Bloods. You go to Flatbush [in Brooklyn], it was United Kings and MOB. We aren't even talking about the Caribbean gangs and all that, so it was a bunch of shit going on that you know when you're a teenager.
As a teenager going to school, we were under constant pressure and stress. Myself and others like me in that time, and in times now, are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. You go to school with five million people on a train packed up like sardines. And you get to school and the worst gang in the city is just waiting there to just whip people's asses for fun. You know what I'm saying? It was nine o'clock in the morning.

And on top of that, nobody cared. We were criminalised for being young. It was a heavy time, man. That time makes me wanna cry, because a lot of young people didn't survive that. And that shit is still going on today.

I talked to my brother, and my nephew is like twelve going on thirteen, you know, a pre-teen. My brother is looking at me with genuine concern in his eyes like, "Every time he leaves to go to school I say a prayer because anything could happen to my son."

The Activist

In 2006, a school yard fight got out of hand in Jena, Louisiana, between black and white youths. The aftermath of the incident led to scare tactics straight from the 1950s Ku Klux Klan playbook, including the hanging of nooses to intimidate the local black population. Among the hundreds of protestors, Mos Def was one of the few hip hop artists to take a stand against it.

MOS DEF: You know the sad shit about that shit, is the fuck loads of people who came down there. People left their jobs, they got fired for that shit, bro. These people ain't famous, they were just concerned. We had all the people power. The people knew what they were supposed to do. I called everybody, man. I called everybody I could call, man. And nobody picked up. And then it was like, they're throwing us under the bus. I'm like, I'm not throwing anybody under the bus. This is the fucking facts, holmes.

I was there in that hot-ass Louisiana sun, wearing a $55,000 watch on purpose. Those motherfuckers then see that this dude that you fucked with got big brothers who are big dudes and they're not having it. But I was the only brother to show up. Shout out to everybody who was there, but I open up the magazines [and] the motherfuckers are on stage with millions of dollars worth of jewellery like it's a motherfucking Fonzie moment.

You know, and this is like post-Katrina. You want to be Blake Carrington? Okay, what do you do after that? I'm sick of that shit, man, and it's like you can't even say nothing about it because it's like, oh, you're being judgemental, oh, you can't understand. It's like, listen, I can't make no judgement because I don't know these people. But I do know these people in power. I'm not making judgement on you. I'm making a judgement on your power policy. You know, you're not just some random private citizen. You're part of an industry that motivates people's hearts and minds, like, what the fuck?

You have to be checked.

For the full story check out HUCK#016, out now.

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