Brian Jackson und Yasiin Bey

It’s certainly not been unheard of for rappers to change their stage names down the years, but it’s rare to see a case - as is true of Yasiin Bey - that seems to be driven purely for artistic and conscientious reasons, rather than because a new moniker might represent a business opportunity or a rebranding exercise. The man who’s made his name both on film and TV screens and on record as Mos Def is now going by the name of Bey instead, but it all seems tied into his wider artistic vision; Bey’s lyricism has taken a marked turn for political territory, having recorded a version of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s ‘Paris’ that rails against the materialism of the original and even undergone Guantanamo-style force-feeding on camera. That might also explain, too, why the shows that he’s performed under the Bey moniker so far seem to have left behind the laid-back approach of his Def days, instead replacing it with a visceral anger and a genuine urgency in the way that he encourages the crowd to engage themselves with the issues that his songs address.