 Rapper/actor Mos Def has been going by that rap moniker since beginning his rap career in the mid-1990s. But when 2011 comes to a close, he will no longer refer to himself as such.
In a recent interview with MTV2's Suckerfree, the New York rap vet revealed that he plans to retire his "Mos Def" moniker at the end of the year ... because it's run its course and he wants to move on.
"I'm retiring the Mos Def name after 2011. That's it," Mos told MTV2's Peter Rosenberg. "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. I feel I've done quite a bit with that name and it's time to expand and move on."
"I also didn't wanna have to deal with having any moniker, or any separation between the self that I see and know myself as, and [what people know me as]," he continued.
In 2012, Mos Def will be instead begin calling himself, simply "Yasiin."
The rapper was born Dante Terrell Smith. However, as a teenager, he took his shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith. At press time, it's unclear if "Yasiin" is a name he adopted when becoming a Muslim then, or if it's a name he's adopted more recently.
Mos Def is set to appear in Showtime television series, "Dexter," where he will play Brother Sam, an ex-con who has supposedly found religion despite finding himself in violent situations.
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