Having announced earlier this year that he would be retiring from music and film projects at the end of 2016, Yasiin Bey, otherwise known as Mos Def, has redoubled his commitments to that plan after cancelling and postponing a number of European live shows over the weekend before posting a video to Facebook which has since been deleted.
As Pitchfork reports, Bey explained in the video that the shows were cancelled as a result of his arrest earlier this year after trying to leave South Africa with a World passport. He was bailed but it’s still unclear whether he can leave the country, where he currently lives, to fulfil upcoming live shows – a show at London’s O2 Forum (set to take place on Friday) has been moved to October 22. In the video though, Bey suggested a solution of offering ticket holders exclusive video streams.
Bey again confirmed that he would be retiring very soon, stating that there were some music commitments that he still needed to carry out first. "Apart from that, I’m moving onto other things, still being creative," he said. "You know, definitely fashion, textiles, and just art. Whatever I can create that’s beautiful and useful, that’s what I wanna do."
