A message from hip hop star Mos Def about his SA legal problems has been posted on rap mogul Kanye West's website.
|||South Africa’s immigration laws have been thrust into the international spotlight and ridiculed on a most unlikely platform – US celebrity and rap mogul Kanye West’s website.
West broadcast an audio message late on Tuesday by fellow US rapper and actor Yasiin Bey, better known as Mos Def, who was arrested in Cape Town about a week ago for allegedly trying to leave South Africa using an unauthorised travel document.
Mos Def appeared in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court last Friday and was released on R5 000 bail and has been barred from leaving the country.
Read: EFF condemns Mos Def’s arrest
In the message on www.kanyewest.com, Mos Def said the state was inhibiting his ability to move. He also used the message to announce he was retiring from the music recording industry and from Hollywood.
Mos Def began the message with a freestyle rap referencing one of West’s newest songs, No More Parties in LA – his take on it was No More Parties in SA.
The message was shared more than 15 000 times and reported on around the world.
“All I seek is to leave this state. I’m not looking to institute any future claims for damages,” Mos Def said in it. “I’m the side of the right. I ain’t no that or hazard to nobody.”
Read: What, exactly, is a world passport?
He said he was in Cape Town with his mother, wife and children.
During hiss court appearance last week it emerged one of the three charges he faces is for allegedly aiding and abetting his family, including his wife and mother, who have been accused of being in the country illegally since 2014.
His wife, mother and children, who all have valid US passports, were given until the end of the month to leave South Africa.
In the message this week, He said authorities wanted to deport his family based on “false claims” against him.
He said the document he had used to try and leave the country, a World Passport, was not “fictitious” as local authorities claimed.
The document can be downloaded from the internet.
“I have reasons to believe or suspect there’s political motivations behind (this),” he said, referring to his arrest.
On Wednesday, the same day the message was reported on locally, Home Affairs held a press conference in Pretoria on Mos Def’s immigration woes.
Home Affairs director-general Mkuseli Apleni said he was arrested for trying to travel to Ethiopia using a World Passport.
“The major problem why he could not get on the Ethiopian flight was the document he produced at the immigration counter, the World Passport, which South Africa does not recognise.
“Immigration officers had also detected that his spouse and minor child had overstayed their visit to the republic. Their visitors’ visas had expired in April 2014, and (they) were, therefore, in the country illegally.”
Mos Def is expected in court again next month.
Weekend Argus
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