Friday Aug 26 Mos Def will be hosting at Nocturnal as part of our VMA weekend Festivities! M O S D E F Regarded as one of hip-hop’s most introspective and insightful artists, Mos Def has shaped a career that transcends music genres and artistic medium. A child of hip-hop’s Golden Era, the native Brooklynite spent his childhood imbedded in the culture surrounding him as well as absorbing knowledge from across the artistic spectrum. With the release of “Universal Magnetic†(1996) Mos became an underground favorite, leading to his legendary collaboration with Talib Kweli. The two formed Black Star whose debut album, Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are…Black Star, would become one of the most critically acclaimed hip-hop albums. Mos followed that release with his 1999 solo debut, Black On Both Sides, which was certified gold and credited by critics as bringing hip-hop back to its soapbox roots. As with his music, Mos has demonstrated insight and passion with his acting career, appearing in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, MTV’s Carmen: A Hip Hopera, 2002’s critically acclaimed Monster’s Ball, Showtime, and the 2002 romantic comedy Brown Sugar, for which he received an NAACP Image Award nomination. In addition Mos has served as the host, music supervisor and co-executive producer for the HBO series Def Poetry and served as a writer, producer and actor on the MTV sketch comedy series Lyricist Lounge. Mos completed his Broadway debut in 2002 in the Tony nominated, Pulitzer Prize winning, Topdog/Underdog. Mos re-teamed with Topdog playwright, Suzan Lori Parks and director George Wolfe for the off-Broadway play, Fucking A, for which he was awarded an Obie Award. In 2003, Mos Def starred in Paramount Pictures’ The Italian Job, alongside Ed Norton, Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron. This year Mos Def starred opposite Alan Rickman in the critically acclaimed HBO movie Something the Lord Made, for which he has received a 2004 Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Miniseries Or A Movie. He will next been seen on the big screen in the feature films The Woodsman, with Kevin Bacon, Benjamin Bratt, Eve and Kyra Sedgwick, and A Confederacy of Dunces, starring Drew Barrymore, Olympia Dukakis, Will Ferrell and Lily Tomlin. He additionally has been tapped to star as "Ford Prefect" in Dinsney/Spyglass Entertainment's The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, set for release in 2005. The film is being directed by Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith and currently is wrapping production. Mos Def will release his highly-anticipated sophomore solo release, The New Danger (Geffen Records), on October 12th.
