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Artist News
Mos Def to use new moniker
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 9 September 2011
Rapper and actor Mos Def is splitting up with himself. That’s to say, he’s planning on dumping that moniker at the end of the year, Diddystyle. Though that doesn’t mean he’ll be performing under his real name of Dante Terrell Smith from now on. No, he’s planning on using the name Yasiin, the name of chapter 26 of the Qu’ran.
Mos Def soon-to-be Yasiin told MTV: “I’m retiring the Mos Def name after 2011. I’m actually doing it. Yasiin. That’s 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, and I feel I’ve done quite a bit with that name and it’s time to expand and move on. Also, I didn’t want to have to deal with having any moniker or separation between the self that I see and know myself as”.
