Mos Def: Dante Smith has always repped with righteousness. Even his earliest releases, as a member of Urban Thermo Dynamics, he most definitely bore his nickname: “Yes, Mos Def is the handle,” he shouted on De La Soul’s “Stakes Is High” in the 90s. “Try to test [me] and get suppressed like a government scandal.” Mos Def even packed that name and took it with him to the big and small screen, where Mos Def has appeared in films such as Be Kind Rewind and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He is the embodiment of respect and class and quiet dignity. And now, instead of retiring the mic, he’s gonna retire the stage moniker for something truer to his religious sensibilities. Yasiin is a name that’s in the Qur’an’s 36th surah, considered one of the most important verses. If we can follow all of Prince’s name changes then we can certainly roll with the dude who always had our back.
