Mos Def AKA Yasiin Bey, Black Thought & King Los Challenge Young Emcees to Now-cancelled Three-man "Battle Rap" Cypher (G.O.O.D. Music?)
It seemed lie a pretty blatant, clear-cut call to arms to me when
Brooklyn
rapper-turned-actor-turned-stand-up comic
Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def
suddenly
any brave three-man posse up for the challenge to a battle rap-style cypher between himself,
King Los
, and
Roots
emcee
Black Thought
this past weekend; "me,
Black Thought
, and
King Los
vs. anybody e'erybody... battle anybody. [...] I'm tired of these dudes pretendin' like they dope. You alright, but relax. The dope n***as that think they dope — you ain't as dope as you think. You cool, but you ain't that deal. And we don't have to make no back-and-forth corny records about it." Although, for reasons unknown, Bey has since reneged his previously-incited battle rap challenge, which happened to fit right in, in light of
Drake & Meek Mill
's recent well-publicized beef. He's more of less accusing
YouTube
user and apparent affiliate
rrvid718
of uploading said call to arms video message without, and even against, his consent.
"Kick, Push"
rapper and former
Pharrell
affiliate
was amongst the first emcees to offer to jump in the ring toe-to-toe with
Yasiin Bey
; "If
Mos [Def]
wanna battle, he can get a whiff of the wraith. And I'm behind all these bars don't need to tap
Miller
for some genuine drafts."
"It don't got nothing to do with
Lupe [Fiasco]
— Lupe, you're cool. Do your thing, man. There's no conflict over here, man... or bonanza... or spectacle that I'm going to provide in that way. I'm not interested in that at all, but much success to you," Bey recently phoned in to
"activist, critic, and social media phenom,"
Ferrari Shepard
. Full disclosure here:
Mos Def
is arguably one of my all-time favorite rappers and
The New Danger
is easily amongst my
'Desert Island Albums,'
but I really don't understand why he called off his battle rap challenge so quickly... especially being such an experienced, veteran rapper. Let's just say, even if the initial
Mos Def Battle Challenge
"leak" was a pure accident or misunderstanding, I'm just a little curious as to why he wasn't able to keep up the charade long enough to battle against a few eager home-grown rappers, even if simply just for sheer sport. For what it's worth,
Mos Def
's long in-the-works
G.O.O.D. Music
"debut" has seemingly been completed and imminently shelved, along with his
Zamrock
-centric
Madlib
project and
OMFGOD(BKNOLA)
; "I played
[Kanye]
some new material and the whole song played and there was no words... he goes, "let me hear that again.'"