With Mos Def in the news of late, what with his passport woes and all, we thought we would remind you of a wonderful story from a few years back.

A trip down memory lane if you will. Here we go…

I was chatting to Luke Dale Roberts, owner of Cape Town’s famed Test Kitchen and Pot Luck restaurants the other day and he told me the funniest story about rap superstar and Cape Town resident, Mos Def. Def has since changed his name to Yasiin Bey, but people are taking a while to abandon the old name.

So Bey recently visited the Test Kitchen and sat down to eat dinner with a small group. One of his biggest fans happens to be a waiter at Test Kitchen and he was very upset because Yasiin wasn’t sitting his section. He felt it necessary to let everyone know that his idol was sitting in the restaurant, including the waiter looking after the celebrity’s table, who had never heard of him before.

“The guy sitting at table 12 is Mos Def.” He told the waiter.

“Which guy?” The waiter asked, to make sure.

Bey was pointed out and the waiter thanked his colleague for the heads up, before returning to take the table’s order.

He returned to the table, looked at Bey and with overly-annunciated mouth movements, he started shouting, “WILL.YOU.BE.HAVING.THE.PICKLED.FISH?”

Startled, Bey confirmed that he would be having the pickled fish and told the guy that there was no need to shout.

The waiter took the order, returned to the kitchen and asked the fan why he had told him the guy at the table was ‘mos deaf,’ when he seemed to have perfect hearing.

How beautiful is that?

This story is bona fide 100% true and Luke will verify it for you the next time you’re at the Test Kitchen. If you ever get a table.

The beauty of this whole incident is it could only happen here, with ‘mos’ being a very common Afrikaans word.

Dis mos snaaks, neh?

Visit the Test Kitchen, here.

Visit the Pot Luck Club, here.