WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
This was an interesting one, as I have just found out that Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def, short for Most Definitely) was a child actor but this was mainly on TV. I’m going to be honest, I have listened to very little of his music so to me he is mainly an actor and from what I’ve seen…a pretty good one at that.
Begin Again
So, this film was originally supposed to be for Keira Knightley, however seeing the trailer with Mos Def in – I had to change it around! What I love about this is the fact that even though he is a music artist, he doesn’t play one in this film unlike Adam Levine and Cee Lo Green. Mos plays the owner of a recording label by the name of Saul Byron who unfortunately fires his business partner Dan, who the film is centred around – well, him and Keira’s character of Greta – because of this, Mos’s character is reasonably small in the grand scheme of things. Of course, his character is important because it is him that decides if Greta gets signed or not in the end but because the story follows the journey to that moment, it means he only has a couple of scenes throughout the film. Now, a little bit of a side note (mainly because there’s nothing left to say about Mos in this film), I love the way this film goes because naturally you would assume that Dan and Greta are going to get together through the production of her album but actually –the film ends with a subtle nod to the fact that he got back with his wife.
Island of the Dead
It’s really weird, outside of the skipping children, the opening of this film reminded me quite a bit of Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2. However, these are clearly not very similar films! We meet Mos’ character around 15 minutes into the film, playing one of the inmates being used on Hart Island to bury unknown bodies, but unfortunately we don’t see him again for quite a while after this which started to make me think that was going to be his only scene and wasn’t going to be able to use this film at all. The fact that he had an actual character name, Robbie J, I thought his role was going to be much bigger than it turned out to be. When he is on screen later on in the film, he speaks very little in comparison to other characters around him. I’ll say this much however, given the age old trope in horror films of the black man dying first, I’m happy to say that this isn’t the case with regard to his role. The benefit to that, even though I’m sure Robbie J wouldn’t agree, is the fact that he is the one to find Rodger’s body. Obviously, that doesn’t mean he survives to the end, he’s just lucky enough not to be first.
16 Blocks
I’m going to come out and say it straight away, I love this film! Even though seeing Bruce Willis with hair still messes with me. This film has such a simple plot, Detective Jack Moseley only has to get Eddie Bunker, played by Mos Def, sixteen blocks from lock-up to the courthouse. Easy right? You would be so, so wrong and that’s what makes the film so good. Underneath that simple plot, this is a film about police corruption and the idea of them protecting their own. When I first saw this, I thought this is what Mos Def genuinely sounded like but having seen Begin Again since I know that isn’t the case so I wouldn’t what made him chose to affect such an accent. Maybe because it was to come across as trustworthy because for some odd reason I had remembered there was more to his character than just testifying against a cop and I’ll be honest, every time I watch this film I think that. Thankfully I’m wrong every time but this means I also don’t like the way they tried to make the audience think he hadn’t survived his gun shot wound.
Honorary Mentions
I couldn’t talk about Mos Def and not mention two of my favourites roles, both of which were on TV. Firstly, we have him starring as Brother Sam in Dexter who tried to help Dexter Morgan get a handle on his “dark passenger”. Better than that however, and this is possibly my favourite episode of House, is his role as Lee. He has awoken from a bicycle accident with locked-in syndrome meaning the whole time he doesn’t move and we can only hear his thoughts and it is a credit to any actor that can act so well without actually doing anything.
