Is Laila! Really Mos Def’s Daughter?

Over the past couple of months, if you were online at all, there’s a strong likelihood you heard “Not My Problem,” the catchy breakout single from New York rising star Laila! (yes, the punctuation is part of her name). If you did any research on the 18-year-old artist, you might have learned a surprising tidbit: Laila! was rumored for the past year to be the daughter of a hip-hop icon, Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def of Black Star).

However, since she is such a new artist, it was hard to confirm this fact, as she’d done almost no interviews and only released a handful of well-received singles. So…

Is Laila! Really Mos Def’s Daughter?

As it turns out… yes! She confirmed her parentage in an interview with Complex‘s Jordan Rose. While the interview hasn’t been published yet as of this writing, Complex shared a clip on social media. While she said he didn’t give her any specific special sauce to help her on her way, he was supportive of her artistic journey. “I have just always been my own artist in a way,” she said. “That’s the cool thing, because I feel like as a kid, whenever we would just jam sesh and vibe out, me and him, I always had my own style. I always had my own thing going on. And he’s always just been like, ‘Okay kid, I see you.’”

An interview that was published was with established hip-hop media personality Angela Yee, in which she addressed her dad again. “They’ve always been so supportive of everything that I’ve wanted to do,” she said. “They never question what I want to do. My mom, my dad, you guys have always just been like, ‘Okay, that’s what she’s gonna do. That’s Laila!’ And I feel like that’s always made me feel like I can take on the world, or I can show the world who I am because I’ve always had that in my life.”

You can check out the full interview below.