Grab the tissues!
Yasiin Bey—the artist formerly known as Mos Def—has announced his retirement, reports Billboard.
“I’m retiring from the music recording industry as it is currently assembled today, and also from Hollywood, effective immediately,” Bey said in an audio message posted on Kanye West’s officially website. “I’m releasing my final album this year. And that’s that.”
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Bey has spent the last week in the headlines after he was detained in South Africa for allegedly trying to leave the country using an illegal “world passport.” He used his audio message to rap his international struggles, a freestyle he referred to as “No More Parties in SA,” a nod to West’s recently released “No More Parties in L.A.”
“Why these police up in my face?” he raps. “Why they raiding my place? Why I don’t feel safe? This is not an expression of fear. This is just to make things clear. My intentions are pure in coming here. And that’s for everything I love or hold dear. Homies in the building. So is my wife and my children. I committed no crime. Why is the state wasting my time?”
Bey says he is “being prevented from leaving unjustly, unlawfully, and without any logical reason.”
“Anyone can do the research about the world passport; it’s not a fictitious document,” he adds. “I have reason to believe or suspect that there are political motivations behind the way I’m being treated.”
“I just wanna go home.”
Listen to the entire audio message below. Bey’s final album will reportedly be released later this year.