Everything's got space between it, the planets, trees, your eyes. Your eyes get too close together, it's a whole different world. You can lose perspective.
— Mos Def
I never had any ambitions of being a movie star or anything like that, but you know, this is nice.
That's what I've been trying to strive for - to draw a clear picture, to open up a new dimension.
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 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.
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.
It's possible and available to any artist to be himself or herself on their own terms, to be accepted and embraced by black people. You don't have to be a thug to get love from black people.
I didn't want to have to deal with having any moniker or separation between the self that I see and know myself as.
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.
I'm retiring the Mos Def name after 2011. I'm actually doing it.
You want to know how to rhyme, then learn how to add. It's mathematics.
Focused. I'm a hustler. And my hustle is trying to figure out the best ways to do what I like without having to do much else.
I'm trying to get low. People's personalities can get in the way of their own work.
I'm just an artist and I'm doin' what I like to do.
I get reminded a lot of the time that my life is a little bit different, but I'm just trying to keep it as regular as possible because I like it that way.
All the things that are worth doing, take time.
I was taught when there's somethin' you can change around keep quiet, you got nothin' to complain about.
And remember don't high post when you're far from home, and high posting when you're all alone.
