Guess which rap artist is planning to change their name..and no, it’s not Puff Daddy (or P. Diddy, pr whatever his name is these days). If you guessed Mos Def, then you’re right. But he isn’t going back to his government name, Dante Smith. Instead, he will go by the name Yasiin, likely to give tribute to Islam. Yasiin is the 36th Sura in the Qur’an. Some may think he’s doing it for publicity (like Sean Puffy Combs) and others believe that he’s trying to grow himself as a person and rapper.
“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,” Def said. “It’s time to expand and move on.”
Mos Def…I mean Yasiin converted to Islam back when he was a teenager, so he says: “[I don’t want to have] any moniker or separation between the self that I see and know myself as.”
He went on to say that he wouldn’t get offended if someone mistakenly calls him Mos Def due to old habits.
Other hip hop artists that have changed their name include Cat Stevens, who changes his name to Yusuf Islam back in the ‘70s. Now, he performs as Yusuf. Bow Wow and Romeo both dropped the Lil’ off of their names as a sign to show that they’re not little anymore.
What do you think about Mos Def’s name change?