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| Mos Def |
The world famous American born rapper, Mos Def (now known as Yasiin Bey), has today been forced to cancel his tour in the United States after immigration refused his entry to the country.
This is due to a legal battle concerning the protest video he made to support detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The Together music festival in Boston wrote the following on its website:
“We regret to inform you that due to immigration / legal issues Yasiin Bey is unable to enter back into the United States and his upcoming U.S. tour has been canceled.”
The reason he has not been allowed to enter the country is as follows: he made a personal stand against the force-feeding of 44 of 120 Guantanamo Bay detainees who were on hunger strike over the conditions of their incarceration and total absence of due process.
In July 2013, Bey created a video filming the standard force feeding procedure applied to detainees, which was filmed and disseminated around the world by the Guardian newspaper. He consented to appear in the video and be force fed under the same condition that the said detainees do.
The distressing scenes went on to become the eighth-most viewed story in the history of the Guardian’s website. Take a look at the video below:
Mos Def currently lives in South Africa, despite remaining a prominent US rapper and appearing in TV shows such as Dexter. He revealed his reasons for moving to Cape Town in a recent interview.
“I lived in Brooklyn 33 years of my life. I thought I’d be buried in that place. And around seven years ago, I was like, you know, ‘I gotta go, I gotta leave.’ It’s very hard to leave. And I lived in a lot of places. Central America. North America. Europe for a while. And I came to Cape Town in 2009 and it just hit me. I was like, ‘Yeah.’ I know when a good vibe gets to you. And, you know, I thought about this place every day from when I left.
“I’m not here just for like middle class comfort, you know. Sure, it’s a beautiful place, you got the ocean, the mountain, the botanical garden, the beautiful people, the history, the culture, the struggle and everything — maaan, let me tell you something, for a guy like me, who had five or six generations not just in America but in one town in America, to leave America, things gotta be not so good with America.”
Jeremiah 50:6
My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace.
Ezekiel 34:10
Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.
Luke 16:15
And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God
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