Yasiin Bey Confirms He’s Retiring After Final Shows in Cape Town

Yasiin Bey doubled down on his retirement claims today (Oct.14). The Brooklyn-born rapper formally known as Mos Def went on Facebook Live earlier today for the first time. While the caption of the video repeats the cryptic phrase "The local time is always now" that's been recurring in Yasiin's recent releases, the artist/activist got a lot off his chest in the seven-minute video.

The reason for the video was to tell fans that due to travel documents he's still waiting on, he won't be able to attend the first few shows of his European tour in person. Yasiin instead said he would be live streaming his performance exclusively for any who bought tickets to the London show slated to take place on the 14th.

"I'm retiring this year for real," said Yasiin around the five-minute mark of the video. "This week, with the seventeenth anniversary of Black on Both Sides being released, I'm grateful to have had the career that I've been able to enjoy."

Yasiin goes on to say that while he's made commitments to a couple films before he announced his retirement, he's moving on creating in other ways: "fashion, textiles, arts. Whatever I can create that's beautiful and useful that's what I want to do." During the broadcast, Yasiin also sent a message to Jay Z, saying that he wants to premiere his last songs on Tidal.

Bey has been stranded in South Africa for pretty much all of 2016 after being locked up for using false travel documents to leave the country. In January of this year, the "Ms. Fat Booty" rapper announced his retirement on Twitter and had fans reacting very strongly. But despite the claim that he's going to hang up the mic for good, Yasiin has been very musically active this year. He's dropped songs with his friend Ferrari Sheppard as the duo Dec. 99th, assisted A Tribe Called Quest on their new music and has performed live with BadBadNotGood in Cape Town.

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