Yasiin Bey

Influences

• Slick Rick — Yasiin practically memorized 'The Great Adventures of Slick Rick' and paid direct homage by covering and reinterpreting 'Hey Young World' line-for-line. You hear it in the effortless conversational pacing and theatrical character work across his entire discography. Nobody borrowed Rick's narrative bounce with more reverence.
• Bad Brains — He brought Bad Brains guitarist Dr. Know into his live backing collective Black Jack Johnson and regularly cited their D.C. hardcore movement as a blueprint. You hear that thrash energy driving tracks like 'Rock N Roll' and 'Freaky Black Boy'. It grounded his philosophy that Black artists invented heavy rock and owned every inch of it.
• Fela Kuti — His mother played Afrobeat constantly in his childhood home, and he famously joined the Red Hot organization to cover Fela's catalog directly. That Nigerian funk cadence drives the percussive, off-beat vocal delivery on 'Quiet Dog Bite Hard'. He treats the drum pattern as a political statement, pure Fela style.
• Weldon Irvine — The legendary jazz-funk composer became his direct mentor and studio collaborator in Brooklyn during the late nineties. Irvine played piano and arranged keys across 'Black on Both Sides' before tragically taking his own life in 2002. His spiritual jazz chords are the literal spine of Yasiin's peak solo work.
• Marvin Gaye — He studied 'What's Going On' as the gold standard for blending radical political grief with sublime vocal melody. You hear Gaye's vulnerable, multi-tracked vocal phrasing all over soulful cuts like 'Umi Says' and 'Modern Marvel'. It gave him permission to stop just rapping and actually sing his truth.