I Will Never Interview Mos Def
“They say you can sleep when you’re dead, can you interview
Mos Def while deceased?”
- Sleep When I’m Dead
You like that quote? I thought it was pretty fresh when I wrote it, pretty much 5 years ago. I remember that night in the spring of 2006. I was 24. I was teaching 5th grade at Henderson Elementary in Englewood on Chicago’s Southside. Derrick Rose wasn’t grabbing headlines yet, and unfortunately, the neighborhood was most known for it’s extreme poverty, and rash of violence that spring, violence that innocently claimed two of my school’s students much, much too early.
I sat at my futon that night, like many nights, overwhelmed and anxious. The classroom was getting tough. I just got over a really bad case of strep-throat, which turned into mono. My girlfriend (who was teaching 3rd grade at the same school) broke up with me, yet kept sending her students to ask me to let her borrow things… and all I wanted to do was interview Mos Def.
“Can I apply from the grave and recieve a doctoral degree
Publish a book and recieve copyright fees?
Can I accomplish my goals by implanting my soul
In the body of someone with more stamina than me?”
I was beat down. Beaten by the same school system that had beaten down my students, my students’ parents, and so many others. I was fatigued from balancing my passion for music with my passion for knowledge. Coming home and starting shift #2 writing and djing daily. And yet, none of it felt like enough. Everything was bottled in, and I was at a period of almost bottoming out. I felt alone, isolated, and almost powerless against a shitty school system, and a changing music world that was producing worse music by the day. While I had posters and quotes from Mos Def, Common, Kanye West, and Beastie Boys around my classroom, it was the sounds of D4L, Dem Franchize Boys, and others that populated the hallways.
“See, I teach in the valley where the shadow of death lives
In rent subsidized housing with free lunch and breakfast
Did you catch it? It’s kind of hard
Squeezing so much anger into 16 bars”
But this night, as I sat on my futon in my tiny studio apartment in Old Town and wrote, I started to feel better. The words just flowed. And all I could think about was interviewing Mos Def.
It’s been a long time since. I’ve interviewed a slew of artists, fashion designers, directors, photographers. I’ve picked the brains of some of my musical heroes, and others who inspire me. I’ve talked to Talib Kweli 3 or 4 times. I’ve been in the studio with Raekwon and DJ Babu, sat across the coffee table from the Beastie Boys, had an hour long conversation about the old TV shows with Ricky Powell, and talked to Busta Rhymes about wavelengths… But I’ve never interviewed Mos Def.
I met him once. Briefly. It was summer of 2007, and he performed with Blackstar at Union Park. After the show a friend of mine, who was also a family friend of Mos Def’s, introduced me to him. I didn’t say much except “hello”, to which he replied, “nice to meet you.” Trust me, it wasn’t as cheesy in real life.
Mos Def has been my favorite artist since I heard him in the late 90’s as part of the Lyricist Lounge crew. He had a guest spot on A Tribe Called Quest’s Love Movement LP, and also an underground hit with “Fortified Live”. Blackstar was like nothing I’d ever heard, and it was a wrap when I put Black on Both Sides into my CD player while looking out the window onto the alley behind my parents’ apartment.
Mos Def’s music has gotten me through a lot. It’s given me braggadocios lines to mumble as I walked around Indiana’s Campus with a hoodie, headphones, and a large chip on my shoulder. It’s given me a way to express a heavy heart during times of injustice and intolerance in the world. It’s given me inspiration, and in a way, motivation to keep going. You see, I’ve still never interviewed Mos Def.
Today Mos Def announced that he will be changing his name at the start of 2012 to Yasiin. It’s a name he brought up on his last LP, The Ecstatic. He said it’s time to move on, to expand, to grow and that the Mos Def moniker didn’t fully match his own self-identity. Unless something unforeseen happens… I’ll probably never interview Mos Def.
And that’s cool. I’m ok with it. Or maybe I’m not. I really don’t know. I think I’ve changed a lot as well since Mos Def told me that “I only know a little bit of Spanish”… Or maybe I haven’t, and I need to. As Mos Def turns a new leaf, I hope to as well.
You can pray to g-d or believe me
Follow or leave me
You can quit while ahead, or work till your bleeding
I’m on a mission as long as I’m breathing
And I’ll sleep when I’m dead, and believe I’ll sleep easy!
… Maybe I can still interview Yasiin.
