I like to read the 'Financial Times' when I'm traveling. 'Economist.' 'Ad Busters.'
I believe the projects were a social experiment; we were laboratory rats stacked on top of each other, and people just knew, inherently, that there was something wrong. There's not a lot of regard for the property by the residents.
I didn't want to have to deal with having any moniker or separation between the self that I see and know myself as.
I can't control what people think. I'm not trying to manipulate people's thoughts or sentiments. I write all the time. You have to experience life, make observations, and ask questions. It's machine-like how things are run now in hip-hop, and my ambitions are different.
I feel like being into the beat of your own drum has become too prominent in the culture.
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 and it's time to expand and move on.
To me, playing an instrument and singing, all of these different things are just as natural to me as rhyming.
Twitter freaks me out. You have followers? It feels so obsessive and proprietary.
I guess something that you love to do, you gotta ease up off it and give it a little space, come back and be fresh to it.
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.
Record companies are not necessarily interested in you realizing your artistic dream. The bottom line is that they got to sell records.
I just don't think it's very dignified to ask people to like you. You can just wind up being somebody's ottoman.
I don't wanna get into that space where a lot of guys now, their solo album is like eight or 10 songs with other people, you don't get an idea of who this guy is. I just wasn't interested in that.
I was taught when there's somethin' you can change around keep quiet, you got nothin' to complain about.
I'm retiring the Mos Def name after 2011. I'm actually doing it.
That's what I've been trying to strive for - to draw a clear picture, to open up a new dimension.
I don't mind being black. I'm black out loud. It's more than the people that they are, it's the condition that they represent.
There are a lot of people who call themselves teachers or leaders, but they're really just propagandists.
I'm growing as an individual, but your always growing. All of my albums are snapshots of where I am artistically.
I have mad brims.
