Yasiin Bey, previously known as Mos Def, has just reminded us all how much we miss his flow.
Singing and freestyling over a heavy organ on a beat produced by Ferrari Shepard, his A Country Called Earth collaborator, Yasiin begins the track with a Bismillah before addressing the issue of desire: “I hope you’ve got what you need and that you need what you want”.
The track comes hot on the heels of cancelled tour dates for Yasiin in Scandinavia following his arrest in South Africa earlier this year on charges of using a false passport to leave the country and illegally helping his family stay in the country. He’s currently out on bail, but has been stopped from touring internationally.
Following that debacle the rapper and actor released a message through Kanye West’s website informing fans he was retiring “effective immediately”, and that his last album will be released this year.
Yasiin addressed the cancelled May 5 and 6 tour dates directly on a recording uploaded to Soundcloud – where he sounds in a much better place than in the immediate aftermath of January’s events – and announced plans to reschedule the tour for this autumn, adding that he’s “very, very blessed”.
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