I began to fear that Mos Def was being treated as a product, not a person, so I've been going by Yasiin since '99. At first it was just for friends and family, but now I'm declaring it openly.
“Moral persuasion over a period of time makes a difference, but we shouldn't be naive to think that just because we raise it in a meeting it will make all those problems go away. It won't and it doesn't.”
“Bosnia is a complicated country: three religions, three nations and those 'others'. Nationalism is strong in all three nations; in two of them there are a lot of racism, chauvinism, separatism; and now we are supposed to make a state out of that.”