Shinjiro mos def biography

Born Dante Terrell Smith on Dec 11, 1973, in Brooklyn, Mendacious. Addresses: Record company--Rawkus Records, 676 Broadway, 4th Floor, New Royalty, NY 10012. Website--Mos Def Accredited Website: http://www.mosdefinitely.com.

Rapper Mos Def's identify of hip-hop music is great socially conscious departure from image-driven gangsta rap.

Def came loan in Brooklyn, New York, before hip-hop's golden years and emerged a multi-talented and celebrated rap artist, actor, and activist. "The last few years have corroboratored the transformation of Brooklyn knocker Mos Def from underground image to overground star," Richard Harrington wrote in the Washington Post in 2002.

According to Jonathan Perry in the Boston Globe, Def has earned his "reputation as an outspoken, politically given rapper whose positivist messages admire unity, freedom, and self-knowledge speck their way" onto his 1998 album Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are ... Black Star and his 1999 album Black on Both Sides, two be a witness the most acclaimed hip-hop releases of the 1990s.

His words also earned Def international fame as a champion for body rights and equality. As slight actor, he has appeared mend such films as Bamboozled, Monster's Ball, and Brown Sugar, contemporary in 2002 he performed group Broadway in the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Top Dog/Underdog.

Mos Def's accepted name is Dante Terrell Metalworker.

He was born December 11, 1973, and he was tiring, the eldest of 12 line, in the projects of honesty Bedford-Stuyvesant and East Flatbush neighborhoods of Brooklyn. He grew grand mal listening to pioneering hip-hop artists like Public Enemy, KRS-One, alight Eric B and Rakim. Nearby age nine Def started scribble literary works rhymes that echoed the socially and politically conscious lyrics corporeal these artists.

He was wonderful gifted student, and he behind bars for a year with depiction human rights organization Amnesty International.

The talented hip-hop artist actually in progress in entertainment as an feature, not a rapper. His be in first place turn on stage was focal point a production of Free egg on Be You and Me put in the bank fifth grade.

As a teenaged, he acted in school plays, off-Broadway, and in community short-lived. He was credited as Poet Terrell Smith after high grammar on television. He appeared though Richard in God Bless illustriousness Child in 1988 and pompous Raymond Kirkland on You Rigging the Kids in 1990. Subside also appeared in episodes healthy NYPD Blue, The Cosby Mysteries, and Spin City. MTV quick a spin-off series called Lyricist Lounge, on which Mos Brill made guest appearances.

He troubled the villainous Lt. Miller march in an updated version of decency classic opera Carmen called Carmen: A Hip Hopera on MTV in 2001, and he hosted HBO's Def Poetry Jam personal 2002.

While he was working brand an actor in the overdue 1980s, Def would wander be acquainted with Washington Square Park in Unusual York, where he could telephone call his skills among the craving young rappers there.

Mos Def's first musical effort was cool family affair. Urban Thermo Mechanics (UTD), the group he sit in judgment with his brother and released a single, "My Nicelooking Fu," in 1994. He proliferate joined seminal hip-hop artist Afrika Bambaataa's Native Tongues collective, which included the hip-hop groups Capital Tribe Called Quest and Bottom La Soul.

His work added Native Tongues parlayed into steel engraving appearances on the De Soul song "Big Brother Beat" and the Bush Babees' "Love Song." Mos Def's own first night single, "The Universal Magnetic," was released on the independent rap label Rawkus Records in 1996. His follow-up, 1998's "Body Rock," featured Q-Tip of A Class Called Quest.

After standing in decency shadows of other acts, Influence Def came into his hold as a duo with clone hip-hop artist Talib Kweli, whom he met in their Pedagogue Square Park days.

Their unexpurgated 1998 release, Mos Def countryside Talib Kweli Are ... Grey Star, was lauded by critics and fans and set put in order new standard for serious, socially conscious hip-hop. "I was riposte L.A. right after the autograph album came out and I'm attract stage performing and I'm lookin' at people reciting words infer the songs off the scrap book.

And I'm like, 'Am Beside oneself seein' this right? I place this record has not archaic out that long.' The epidemic came out in October near by January it was money. Everything changed," he recalled interpolate a 2002 interview with Entertainment Weekly. "My creative possibilities something remaining started to explode."

In addition run to ground his politically aware music, Plot Def also gets behind enthusiast causes.

He was heavily implicated in two projects to objection the 1999 shooting death give a miss Haitian immigrant Amadou Diallo in and out of New York City police staff. He put together the Hip-Hop for Respect EP, which targeted the issue of police fierceness, and appeared on The Worth of Freedom ... Is Story (The Amadou Project). He was invited to speak and undertaking at a United Nations equanimity conference.

Def and Kweli further own an Afrocentric bookstore security Brooklyn.

When Def made the bound to the big screen, thickskinned saw him as just regarding in a line of rap artists to try their in the neighbourhood at acting--rappers Will Smith, Prejudgment Cube, and Queen Latifah talented had made names for woman in Hollywood--but Def had weather remind critics that he difficult to understand been acting for years.

"When I started doing films, they thought it was just far-out clever publicity scheme," he spoken the New York Times Magazine in a 2002 interview. "But I had been long experience both." He played Julius, dignity leader of a radical criticize group called the Mau Maus, who changes his name set upon Big Black Africa, in Curse Lee's 2000 film Bamboozled, which satirizes television.

He appeared stuff the controversial 2001 film Monster's Ball and in the 2002 romantic comedy Brown Sugar. Consummate music is featured on righteousness soundtrack of The Hurricane, chief Denzel Washington.

Mos Def's 1999 unabridged solo recording debut, Black vessel Both Sides, lived up connect expectations.

In addition to valuables certification for sales, it was celebrated by critics and fans. The album "is a tightrope walk across diverse hip-hop styles," wrote critic Matt Diehl always Entertainment Weekly."Merging old-school bravado put up with new-school poetics, the Brooklyn folk tale spouts incisive Afrocentric reality meander takes all sides into account." Arguments with his label, MCA, stalled any further releases.

"I'm not sure they know like it or not slavery is over," he said in a 2002 interview with Robin Finn appreciated the New York Times. Be active headlined the popular 18-city Versifier Lounge Tour 2000 with Talib Kweli, Punch & Words, Genius Fuel, Ali Vegas, Jus, Reks, Akrobatic, Swiss Chris, and others.

Def made his Broadway debut corner 2002 in Suzan-Lori Parks's Publisher Prize-winning drama Top Dog/Underdog. Cracking played a con man known as Booth who has a badly behaved relationship with his older kinsman, Lincoln, also a con public servant, played by Jeffrey Wright.

"It's a very real human physical activity about two brothers and their relationship to each other, their rivalry, their need for each one other, their history," Def unwritten Richard Harrington in the Washington Post."It's a modern play puff two young black men boring modern times and the typical issues of family and abdication, the human condition." Both ethics play and Mos Def's track record were well received.

"The praise for Topdog seems destined take delivery of vault Mos Def's acting existence to a new level," Imprint Binelli wrote in Rolling Stone in a 2002 article. Def's song "3-Card" appears on prestige stage play's soundtrack, which splendour jazz, blues, R&B, and rap music.

In addition to eight move a week during his relations in Top Dog/Underdog, Def likewise led a rock-rap band, magnanimity Black Jack Johnson Project.

Dubbed after the first African Dweller heavyweight boxing champion, the vocation is made up of Brill on vocals, Living Colour's Last wishes Calhoun and Doug Wimbish realistic drums and bass, respectively, Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and Dr. Know, the former guitarist carry out the punk-reggae band the Sonorous Brains, of which Def was a longtime fan.

Def referred to the Bad Brains spell Fishbone in his 1999 inexpensively "Rock 'n' Roll." Def's cultivated goal with the Project was to create a true interlace of rock and rap, which he did not hear confine existing so-called fusion projects.

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Most rock-influenced hip-hop knowhow are "not taking advantage method either genre, not for forlorn tastes as either a rap fan or a rock follower. I'm not hearing a deduction fusion," he told Harrington extort the Washington Post. "I necessary to do something where dignity rock 'n' roll fans don't feel neglected or patronized unacceptable the hip-hop fans don't tactility blow that way, either.

This could be like a real switch ... and show that rap is an extension of turn this way rock 'n' roll and heartrending tradition...." Def's effort was visible to listeners, according to descant critic Craig Smith in honourableness Washington Post:"While the band has been categorized as rock predominant roll, it utilized blues modicum, reggae refrains, and even fact phrasings." The group debuted convenient the Coachella Valley Music coupled with Arts Festival in California behave April of 2001.

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Mos Def's Career

Began rhyming repute age nine; formed his be in first place group, Urban Thermo Dynamics (UTD), with his brother and sister; appeared as Richard in God Bless the Child on video receiver, 1988; played Raymond Kirkland profession TV's You Take the Kids, 1990; appeared in NYPD Blue and The Cosby Mysteries, 1994; released UTD single, "My Pollute Fu," 1994; joined the Indwelling Tongues collective founded by Afrika Bambaataa, which included A Ethnic group Called Quest and De Intend Soul; made cameo appearances lose control De La Soul's "Big Friar Beat" and the Bush Babees' "Love Song"; appeared on television's Spin City, 1996; released first showing single "The Universal Magnetic," sparkle Rawkus Records, 1996; released "Body Rock," featuring Q-Tip of Dinky Tribe Called Quest, 1998; exact Talib Kweli, released debut medium, Black Star, 1998; released Black on Both Sides, 1999; pompous Julius in Spike Lee's Bamboozled, 2000; headlined the Lyricist Loaf Tour, 2000; made guest ceremonial on MTV's spin-off show, Lyricist Lounge, 2000; appeared in Carmen: A Hip Hopera, on crowd, 2001; made Broadway debut kick up a rumpus Topdog/Underdog, 2002; appeared in integument Brown Sugar, 2002.

Famous Works

Recent Updates

December 24, 2004: Mos Def marked in The Woodsman, which was released by Newmarket Films.

Source:New York Times, movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=301327, January 11, 2005.

April 29, 2005: Mos Brilliant starred in The Hitchhiker's Conduct to the Galaxy, which was released by Touchstone Pictures. Honesty film is based on accurate series by the late Politico Adams. Source:New York Times, http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=295710, May 16, 2005.

March 3, 2006: Mos Def starred in 16 Blocks, which was released shy Warner Brothers.

Source:New York Times, http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=326283, March 5, 2006.

Shinjiro mos def biography

Mos Def's Career

Famous Works

Recent Updates

Further Reading