performances with the artist rapping, crooning, drumming and at times breaking into dance on stage. The return to music marks Bey’s first studio release since 2009’s The Ecstatic (Downtown Records).īey’s humane and charismatic personality was on display at his Washington, D.C. The first of the three, Dec 99 th, a joint project with producer/journalist Ferrari Sheppard, was released December 9 on Tidal.
In late summer 2016, Bey announced that he planned to retire from film and music “effective immediately,” although the performer later announced he would release a trio of albums before doing so. There is a widely viewed YouTube video in which Bey, in a 2013 protest against the barbaric conditions prevailing at the US military’s Guantanamo Bay internment camp, submitted voluntarily to force feeding to highlight the plight of the detainees. In addition, Bey has taken principled stances opposing police violence, nuclear weapons, the “war on terror” and the US-led wars in the Middle East. Bey has the unusual distinction of having been nominated for Emmy, Golden Globes and Grammy awards. Since first gaining recognition in the mid-to-late 1990s’ hip hop scene, the talented Smith/Mos Def/Bey (who changed his legal and performing name in 2011) has gone on to success in both music and films and television ( Be Kind Rewind, Cadillac Records, etc.). The Kennedy Center shows (December 31-January 2), and a December 21 engagement at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, were collectively billed as the artist’s “retirement” performances in the US.
On January 2, rapper/vocalist/musician Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def, born Dante Terrell Smith in Brooklyn, New York in 1973) performed his third and final show at Washington, D.C.’s John F.
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