Rapper/actor Mos Def, who is now going by the name Yasiin Bey, apparently, is a fifth-generation Brooklynite. Understandably, he was none too pleased about the Barclays Center showing up and hastening the gentrification of his former neighborhood, so he did what any rapper who is clearly really bored with rapping would do and wrote a non-rhyming poem. (Maybe he was inspired by James Russell.) "It's a test to me," Def/Bey was quoted as saying. "Can my words have impact without me reciting them to music?" Let's find out. Here's the fourth of five verses:
Dig a grave
& build on top
digagrave
& build
On top
Emptyempty
FILL UP!!
Dig a grave
& thrill on
Top
digagrave
& kill on
Top
On center. Get it? Because the Barclays Center is, like, a grave where they're burying the real Brooklyn...or something. It's a metaphor. The great thing about poetry is how subtle it is.
· Yasiin Bey, the Former Mos Def, Poetry-Slams the Barclays Center, Hopes for Jay-Z Summit [Vulture]
· Barclays Center coverage [Curbed]
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