Interview with Mos Def

M = Mos Def
A = Alim

A:  It's good to get some fresh air, huh?

M:  Yeah, man, I sorta have a rebellious spirit.

A:  [Laughter]  You're not cooperating today, huh?

M:  No, no, I'm cooperating.  I'm just like, "No, man," you know.  I mean, it's good.  My people are very good.  Like, masha'Allah, they protect me.  But, you know, I'm a very like - I'm real regular man.  I like regular things, you know.  So, I like just walking down the street.  They get mad at me.  I should tell somebody that I'm walking with you, though.  It creates hysteria...  Did you ever see that movie Mrs. Doubtfire?  No, it wasn't Mrs. Doubtfire.  The movie with Shirley MacLaine, and she was the wife of the dead president and the secret service had to protect her.  And she was always trying to dodge them!  [Laughter]  I can't remember the name of the movie.  Sometimes, you know, my folks and my parents, they're real protective.  Which is good.  That's a good thing.

A:  How did you come up with the title of the album, Black On Both Sides? 

M:  Well, I did it sorta as a… I came up with Black On Both Sides because – I don't know – it felt like I was working with both hemispheres of my brain.  I feel like I was just working with the two sides of my brain.  And it was two sides of my personality, you know.  And it was all Black.  And I didn't want to get into that space where I knew that there was things that I was doing that… it wasn't that they were untraditional, but they weren't the type of things that the media and the industry are used to hearing from the Black male perspective.

A:  Like what?

M:  Songs like, "Climb," you know.  From the Black male perspective in Hip Hop.  That type of thing.  And for so long, when we do art like that, if you do those type of things, it's like you're not authentically Black.  Like you're giving up some part of your cultural identity, you know, to explore these other sides of music.  And that's not true.  It's like you're alternative, you know.  And it disengages you from the community.  And I'm not trying to do that at all.  What I'm trying to show to the community is, like, we can do whatever, you know what I'm saying?  We don't have to be defined as like these little, one-dimensional folks.  Or as the ideas that we have are one-dimensional, you know.  And we can still be who we are.  Because, I mean, so much of young, Black America is like really concerned about being hip, which is cool.  I'm concerned about it, too.  I mean, I want to do certain types of music, but I want it all to swing.  I want people from here to East Oakland and East St. Louis and Detroit or whatever, in the ghettos and in the university classrooms, to all be able to rock with it.  So, I chose the title because all of this is just as down as anything you would here from Beanie Sigel or whoever.  Like, I'm feelin a lot of them dudes on a craft level.

A:  Oh, yeah?

M:  Yeah, man!  Beanie's a monster man!  That dude is a monster, man.

A:  What is it about Beanie that makes him a monster, man?

M:  I don't know, man, but it's just like… I mean, I'm really listening to more of him.  I'm studying him.  I'm studying him.  And it's like when he gets to the point where he's really like - and I don't know what his album sounds like because it's still early in the game, but if he has anything that has even like some sly social commentary in it, man…?!

A:  It's going to be on then, huh?

M:  Yeah, man, he's a monster man!  That guy is really, really, like - the last time I felt like that about a MC was Biggie.  I swear to God. 

A:  Yeah?

M:  Oh, yeah, man.  And it's a few facilities that he's showing at this stage of the game that Biggie didn't have!  You understand what I'm saying?  It's a lot that remains to be seen on him, but the early stuff on him is dope.

A:  What do you feel makes a good MC?  What two, three, or four things that a MC has to have to be a good MC?

M:  It's a sense of personal investment.  Temperature.

A:  What do you mean?

M:  Like, Biggie really believed it in his heart.  Pac was like… It's the passion.  It's the sincerity, man, you know what I'm saying?  That pushes a lot of MC's forward.  Of course, there's a lot of other technical facilities like flow, delivery, a different type of characteristic, something that makes you distinctive.  Slick Rick is one of the greatest MC's ever born because he has so many different facilities that he would use: style, vocal texture, the way he even would record.  Like, he was doing call and response with himself!  He would leave four bars open, and then do another character, you understand what I'm saying?  So, I mean, the facilities of Slick Rick portray very few MC's.  That's part of the reason Redman is so good…

A:  Why is that?

M:  …because he's like a hardcore version of Slick Rick.

A:  [Laughter]

M:  Like, he's funny.  He uses a lot of the same recording technique where he leaves four bars open.  He assumes characters.  He's witty.  He has a very inventive use of language.  And he's dead serious, like, you know what I'm saying?  And he says things that are like true.  One of the funniest lines that Redman said, he said, "I used to smoke with a lot of college students/ most of them wasn't graduating and they knew it!"  It's such a true line, you know.  [Laughter]  "Your boombox better form a union, because I'll leave your circuits overworked!"

A:  Damn, you remember those lines!

M:  Yeah, oh, man.  So, it's things like that.  Being able to draw relationships to certain things.  And Beanie's one rhyme - I can't remember the whole thing - but he just sounds like it's just this conspiratorial whisper almost.  He's like, "First you gotta find a quiet town, and tie it down."  You know, it's things like that, that make a MC very attractive.  The only thing from that point is that when a guy has all the stylistic facilities, you just got to transplant the content in there.  And then it's like, "Wheeew!"

A:  So, that's the ultimate thing.

M:  Yeah, then you just start killing them!  Those are all the things that I look for in a MC.

A: What do you mean by "the inventive use of language?"

M:  Well, sort of the way like Black Thought sorta like bends his words.  Just to have a unique way of saying things, you know.  Doing things with the language that draws relationships that not everybody might draw.  Just, I mean, being as creative as you can with the language.

A:  You said in one of your liner notes, "Thanks to my kids for things that the English language can't explain."

M:  Yes, there are many things that the English language can't explain.  I mean, I'm not quite sure, it seems to have its origins everywhere else but itself.  I mean, look in the dictionary.  Most of the words that we use come from other languages.  The common thing is to call English bastardized.  When you start to try to communicate things like ideas of love and warmth, it's a challenge.

A:  What was the concept behind having a song called, "Hip Hop," and a song called, "Rock N Roll"?

M:  Well, it was pretty simple.  One song I was talking about Hip Hop and the other song I was talking about heroes of rock n roll.  I could've came up with more clever titles, but I mean, a lot of the stuff is like exactly as you see it.  It's not nothing deeper.  I try to keep things really as above water, and just as plain as possible.

A:  You say in, "Hip hop", "Speech is my hammer.  I bang the world into shape."

M:  That's just something that came to me.  It's my relationship to the way I'm using language in Hip Hop.  You do build your world with language to a large degree.  You build your world with what you say.  Affirmations.  "I'm gonna do this."  "Things are gonna change."  Then you start to act out those things.  If you tell your children that you love them and that they're special to you, then they start to feel that way about themselves and they start to treat themselves that way.  If you tell your children the opposite of that, then they start to live that out.

A:  Has having children affected the way you look at this, Hip Hop, at all?

M:  Of course!  In every way.  I mean, how couldn't it?  I mean, the answer to that question certainly couldn't be, "No," you know.  Your kids change you.  I can't really even describe it.  Your children just change you.

A:  How did that song ["Mr. Nigga"] with Q-Tip come about?

M:  It was pretty cool.  I mean, he was just on the chorus.  It was a very cool idea, like, a playful idea.  It really wasn't a lot of fan fare.  I mean, me and Tip are pretty close friends.  So, basically, it was just like he came in and did the chorus and left to go work on his thing.  [Laughter]  You know, Tip is like one of my family members.  It wasn't like, "Oh, man, this is so great to work with him!"  I had already sorta been through that with him.  By the time that we did get to work together we had a whole other personal relationship, you know.  Like, word, Tip is my man.

A:  When did you come into your Islamic knowledge?

M:  I took my Shahada four years ago.

A:  I noticed in, "Fear Not of Man," you opened up with, "Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim."  Was that important for the album?

M:  Well, I had been advised that when you do works that go out to the public – written works or spoken works – that you should bless them like that, you know.  It makes sense to me.  The spiritual level just puts the seal on it.  Like I'm making a effort to reach Allah with this.  And, insha'Allah, my efforts will be accepted.  I did the Bush Babees album and when I did the "Gravity" poem, I started out like that.  So, it wasn't the first time that I had done that.

A:  Is there an Islamic circle of rappers, like a community of rappers?

M:  I've met some brothers.  Yeah, I have met some brothers.  There's a community of artists and poets and all types of people.  Muslims are all different types of people.  But sure, there's certainly Muslim MC's.  Some brothers in the Bay Area.  There are a lot of brothers, a good number of brothers doing their thing.

A:  About the writing process, do you have a better time to write?

M:  I mean, I write whenever I got anything to write.  I'm not like one of these super particular writers.  I just need to get it out.  I'll write on the back of something or hotel stationary or a receipt.  Like, it don't matter to me.  I just write whatever's in my mind.  It's a pretty simple process.  Like, I write whatever I'm hearing in my head, and give it some structure from there.  Sometimes I'll come up with a concept or a idea and I'll play around with it.  But really, a lot of it is just like writing whatever's right on top of my heart or on my mind. 

A:  What do you feel is the relationship between rap and poetry?

M:  Well, I mean, Hip Hop is poetry.  All Hip Hop is poetry.  It rhymes.  It's the difference between technically qualifying as poetry and being poetic.  Not everything that's poetry is poetic, but all Hip Hop is poetry.  Anything that rhymes is poetry, but it takes something else to be poetic.

A:  You did that song, "Brooklyn."  Why did you feel the need to represent that on the album?

M:  Because it's home.  Everybody got to represent home.  And I love Brooklyn.  I mean, I just love my hometown.  And not just because I'm from it, but I really love it.  It's just home.  There was a time in New York history when Brooklyn was going to secede from New York and be its own state.  Lots of Brooklyn used to be farmland, you know.  But it still has that spirit about it.  Like, small town neighborhoods.  People know each other.  People talk to each other.  People are very loyal to their neighborhood.  You know, it's like there's history there.  There's a lot of love in Brooklyn.

TO CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW, GET YOUR COPY OF "THA GLOBAL CIPHA: HIP HOP CULTURE AND CONSCIOUSNESS"….

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