Yasiin Bey born Dante Terrell Smith; December 11, 1973), best known by his stage name Mos Def, is an American hip hop recording artist, actor and activist from Brooklyn, New York City, New York. Best known for his music, Mos Def embarked on his hip hop career in 1994, alongside his siblings in the short-lived rap group Urban Thermo Dynamics (UTD), after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. He subsequently formed the duo Black Star, alongside fellow Brooklyn-based rapper Talib Kweli, and they released their eponymous debut album in 1998. He was featured on the roster of Rawkus Records and in 1999 released his solo debut, Black on Both Sides. His debut was followed by The New Danger (2004), True Magic (2006) and The Ecstatic (2009). The editors at About.com listed him as the 14th greatest emcee of all time on their “50 greatest MC’s of our time” list.
Prior to his career in music, Mos Def first entered public life as a child actor, having played roles in television movies, sitcoms, and theater. Since the early 2000s, Mos Def has been well known for his roles in films such as Something the Lord Made, Next Day Air, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 16 Blocks, Be Kind Rewind, The Italian Job, The Woodsman, Bamboozled and Brown Sugar, as well as for his portrayal of Brother Sam in the Showtime drama series Dexter. He is also known as the host of Def Poetry Jam, which aired on HBO between 2002 and 2007.
Mos Def has been vocal on several social and political causes, including police brutality, the idea of American exceptionalism, and the state of African Americans.
Mos Def was born as Dante Terrell Smith in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Sheron Smith and Abdul Rahman. The eldest of 12 children and step-children, he was raised by his mother in Brooklyn, while his father lived in New Jersey.
Although his father was initially a member of the Nation of Islam and later followed Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, who merged into mainstream Sunni Islam from the Nation, Mos Def was not exposed to Islam until the age of 13. At 19, he took his shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith. He is close friends with fellow Muslim rappers Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Kamaal Ibn John Fareed (Q-Tip) of the rap group A Tribe Called Quest.
Mos Def attended middle school at Philippa Schuyler Middle School 383 in Bushwick, Brooklyn where he picked up his love for acting. After returning from filming You Take the Kids in Los Angeles, and getting into a relationship with an older girl, Mos Def dropped out of high school during sophomore year. 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. In a particularly traumatic childhood experience, Mos Def witnessed his then five year old younger brother Ilias Bey (b. Denard Smith) get hit by a car. Bey, who later adopted the alias DCQ, was described by Smith as “my first partner in Hip Hop”.
Mos Def began his rap music career in 1994, forming the rap group UTD (or Urban Thermo Dynamics) along with younger brother DCQ and younger sister Ces. 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.
In 1996, Mos Def 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.
Mos Def signed with Rawkus Records and formed the rap group Black Star with Talib Kweli. The duo released an album, Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star, in 1998. Mostly produced by Hi-Tek, the album featured the singles “Respiration” and “Definition”, which both reached in the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
Mos Def released his solo debut album Black on Both Sides in October 1999, also through Rawkus. The single “Ms. Fat Booty” charted, while the album reached #25 on the Billboard 200. Around this time he also contributed to the Scritti Politti album Anomie & Bonhomie.
In January 2002 Rawkus Records was taken over by Geffen Records, which released his second solo album The New Danger in October 2004. It included contributions by Shuggie Otis and Bernie Worrell, Doug Wimbish,and Will Calhoun as the Black Jack Johnson Band. The album reached #5 on the Billboard 200, making it the most successful for the artist to date. The single “Sex, Love & Money” charted, and was nominated for a Grammy Award. Mos Def’s final solo album for Geffen Records, titled True Magic, was released in 2006.
Mos Def married Maria Yepes in 1996, and has two daughters with her: Jauhara Smith and Chandani Smith. He filed for divorce from Yepes in 2006. The former couple made headlines when Yepes took Mos Def to court over failure in child-support obligations, paying $2,000 short of the monthly $10,000 he is ordered to pay. Mos Def has four other children.
His mother Sheron Smith, who goes by her nickname “Umi”, has played an active role managing portions of her son’s career. She is also a motivational speaker, and has authored the book Shine Your Light: A Life Skills Workbook, where she details her experience as a single mother raising him.
In January 2016, Mos Def was ordered to leave South Africa and not return for five years, having stayed in the country illegally on an expired tourist visa granted in May 2013. Also that month, he was charged with using an unrecognized World Passport and having lived illegally in South Africa since 2014. Mos Def had reportedly recruited Kanye West to help defend him, and posted a message on West’s website announcing his retirement from show business. There is an ongoing court case in relation to immigration offences involving the artist and his family.
Written by Dianne Washington