On Friday, the Internet got hit with new material from Mos Def. Not Yasiin Bey, the artist formerly known as Mos Def, but a Ski Beatz-produced track entitled “Sensei On The Block.” It was fire, and felt like some classic, steel drum-banging Mighty Mos of old. It was weird, since Mos Def changed his name to Yasiin Bey back in 2012, and has been fairly adamant on making sure people knew of the name he was going by.
In the video you see up above, the weirdness you might have felt about “Sensei On The Block” was warranted, as Bey is NOT feeling the release of this track, or any reports on him returning to the name “Mos Def.” Here’s a clip of his statement, which was released exclusively to Okayplayer:
“Whatever reports that you’ve heard that I’m returning to the name Most Def are false, and any music that’s been released under that name recently is without my consent, my knowledge. It’s being sold illegally. Don’t support it, it’s corny and whack to do that. I’m tired of people playing internet games, slandering me and trying to start rumors; I don’t do that to anybody, and I don’t appreciate it being done to me.”
The most baffling thing about all of this is that while Bey says that the Internet can be “a very irresponsible place,” which we can agree with, but it’s hard to immediately discredit a track being touted as a Mos Def track when the track is looking very official on Spotify (with an instrumental to boot, like any old single) and is still for sale on iTunes. It’s listed as being on Soundblock Records / Blingnot Media, and Ski Beatz was all over Twitter and Instagram promoting the single:
As of right now, Ski Beatz hasn’t responded to Bey’s video, but one has to wonder how this track actually ended up on the Internet without any consent from Yasiin Bey whatsoever.
