Mos Def

For Austin City Limits’ first foray into hip-hop, we’re pleased to showcase Mos Def. The Brooklyn-born rapper and actor has been on the vanguard of the underground hip-hop movement for over a decade, mixing live musicians and sampled beats with rhymes about social consciousness and African-American pride. The former Dante Terrell Smith began his musical career in 1994 as a member of the group Urban Thermo Dynamics, which led to guest appearances with De La Soul and Da Bush Babees. This in turn led to a contract with the pioneering label Rawkus Records, who teamed him with fellow traveler Talib Kweli for the highly influential 1998 album Black Star. Def followed with his own groundbreaking 1999 record Black On Both Sides, one of the past decade’s most celebrated rap LPs. Distracted for a while by an award-nominated acting career, including appearances in the films Brown Sugar, The Woodsman, Be Kind Rewind and Cadillac Records and the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Topdog/Underdog, Def returned to the racks with 2004’s The New Danger, which added soul, blues and rock & roll to his mix. 2006’s True Magic included the Grammy-nominated “Indeniable,” and in succeeding years he racked up more guest appearances with the likes of the Roots and Kanye West. Now, with his new record The Ecstatic receiving glowing notices and a slot at the ACL Festival looming, Mos Def hits Studio 6A to bring true hip-hop to ACL.