Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. [But] it's time to expand and move on.

I don't mind being black. I'm black out loud. It's more than the people that they are, it's the condition that they represent.

Record companies are not necessarily interested in you realizing your artistic dream. The bottom line is that they got to sell records.

If you're going to do Chuck Berry, you got to, you know, go all out, and the duck walk is just kind of you know, cursory. That's like standing.

Michael Jordan on the court is a completely different guy. If the play requires him to leap out all the way and grab the ball, that's what he'll do. He may be a completely shy, withdrawn sort of person [off the court].

At its heart, music is all higher mathematics.

Everything's got space between it, the planets, trees, your eyes. Your eyes get too close together, it's a whole different world. You can lose perspective.