…professional decisions for several years now. “My parents have been vocal and influential in all the decisions I made in my life,” says Mos. “It made sense to me to include [my father] officially and to include my mother officially cause she’d been there from the beginning. You need to have that synergy–because who really cares the most about you?”
Even while filming alongside Bill Cosby in the series, “The Cosby Mysteries” (1994-1995) by day, Mos Def immersed himself in the blossoming New York hip-hop scene at night. It was at this time that he first assumed the stage name “Mos Def,” short for “most definitely,” and formed a rap group called Urban Thermo Dynamics alongside one of his brothers, D.c.Q., and the female rapper Ces. They performed in small venues and underground showcases while attempting to break through to larger audiences.
Throughout the early 2000s, Mos appeared in films such as Bamboozled (2000), Monster’s Ball (2001) and The Italian Job (2003). In 2004, Mos Def portrayed groundbreaking heart surgeon Vivien Thomas in the HBO miniseries Something the Lord Made, a role that earned him both Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor.
In addition to his work as an actor and rapper, from 2002 through 2007, Mos Def served as the host of the televised spoken-word program Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry.
“My work is a reflection of the human condition,” Mos Def says. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. I don’t want to mislead people. I want to tell the truth. All my songs are not happy. Some of them are even aggressive—some may say mean, but we all experience these feelings in life. I’m just being honest about what I feel and what sounds and ideas were motivating me at the time.”
“I just try to stay around the right people,” says Mos. “I try to stay around family…[try] to stay around people who believe what I believe and [beg] Allah to help me.”