The iconic rapper Mos Def called his “favourite MC”
Yasiin Bey, the artist formerly known as Mos Def, has always taken his clothing very seriously. In addition to being one of the most thoughtful, eloquent rappers of his generation, he’s also worked in the fashion industry, and he idolises an older MC who knew a thing or two about style.
During an interview about fashion with Complex in 2012, Bey drew a connection between the worlds of hip-hop and clothing. “It’s creatives connecting with other creatives,” he said, “appreciating form or beauty, or imagination or technical application. I think it’s just an appreciation of craft.”
From his perspective, fashion is a central part of human existence. “I mean, fashion has always been an integral part of the arts,” he said, “but it’s also an integral part of everyday life.”
People, he pointed out, use clothing for practical purposes—“keeping you warm, and keeping you [laughing] legally clothed out here”—but they also use it as an “expression of personality, and also art, and beauty, and form.”
In a separate interview with GQ that same year, Bey laid out some of the ways in which he has personally used fashion to express himself at particular points in his life. “When my paternal grandfather passed a few years back,” he explained, “I started to wear a shirt and tie every day, like he did. Michael Jackson’s death had a big impact on me, too.”
Bey, in that GQ interview, declared that hip-hip is “the last true folk art,” so, seeing as how he conceptualises fashion as a fundamental expression of human behaviour, it is not surprising that he understands clothing and style to be such an important part of the scene.
“I think it’s just a timeless thing, and hip-hop has clearly very much influenced the world of style and application of style,” Bey said, returning back to that Complex interview. “Everybody from Slick Rick to Chuck D, there’s been some real icons for us.”
Bey’s love for Slick Rick became apparent during this conversation with Complex, as he declared him to be “the archetype. Period.” For Bey, Slick Rick represented everything a quality rapper should be. A wordsmith and story-teller, with a distinct sense of style to go with it—Bey must have been so delighted to bring Rick on board for a guest verse on his track ‘Auditoriam,’ featured on the 2009 album The Ecstatic.
“He’s my favourite MC,” Bey said of Rick. “He’s the MC that had the earliest influence on me. Not even the fur and the multiple rings, but his style was just—man, just so clean, and it also has roots in early hip-hop culture—where you see the suede fronts, the Bally boots, the Clarks, the sharkskin pants, the Kangols, the Jamel Shabazz era you know?”