An artist’s moniker, some might say, is the most pivotal aspect to their career. Not only is it how audiences associate the title of a song to its respective creator, but to be honest, nobody knows the musicians real name anyways. Audiences take for granted these pseudonyms, which can vary in many forms; among them is for crystallizing the bands overall themes, titling the group after a character the albums are based around, or for religious reasons, i.e. John Mclaughlin changing his name to Mahavishnu John McLaughlin. So, what happens when said band or musician changes their name? I mean, look at Puff Daddy when his name changed to Diddy…

Fans’ will either follow suit, or grow distant from the artist. Like Prince changing his stage name to ‘Jamie Starr,’ and singer-songwriter Cat Stevens embracing his Islamic religion by legally changing his name to ‘Yusuf Islam;’ it took most of their fans a considerable amount of time to comprehend this alteration. Now Mos Def is the next among these fearless entertainers to take the chance of throwing away what fans know them by. After 2011, don’t expect to see him as Mos anymore, he will be known as ‘Yassif.’

Meaning ‘rich’ in Arabic, the “Mathematics” hit-maker explains his name change in an interview with MTV’s Sucker Free at this past weekend’s Rock The Bells festival. The video is available below, thanks to Rap Radar.

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The rapper explains that his change of heart, and name , is for the sole reason to “expand and move on.” It’s still a remarkable thing that any artist would alter the very aspect that audiences know them by, but that’s why it’s an even more courageous leap of faith that anyone would willingly do this. Prince had to change his name due to legal troubles, but Mos Def is doing this for a completely different reason. Whether or not this will affect his career, I’m still impressed that Mos is taking this chance.

Will you still listen to ‘Yassif’ come 2012? Do you even care?