![]() The beat sounds absolutely nothing like anything Chad Hugo (from production duo The Neptunes) ever produced for Kenna. I didn't care for this rap album intro masquerading as a song. Mos surrounded himself with a small dream team of collaborators who do their best to bring out the best in their gracious host: acclaimed underground producers Madlib and Oh No (Madlib's younger brother) provide a combined six tracks out of sixteen, while Chad Hugo, Talib Kweli, and the late James "J Dilla" Yancey stop by to send best wishes. This is a far cry from his previous home, Geffen Records, who used to house acts such as Gza/Genius and The Roots but are now stuck with the likes of Common (not a bad thing, unless you are prone to involuntary recall of Universal Mind Control), Snoop Dogg, and The Game. The Ecstatic brings us The Mighty Mos on his new record label, Downtown Records, where he shares cubicle space with the likes of Gnarls Barkley, Santigold, and Carla Bruni, the current First Lady of France. That's the same reason many bloggers are plugging The Ecstatic as the best shit since sliced cheese. And yet, he received a bigger credit than the guy who played Avon Barksdale on The Wire, mainly because he's Mos Def. It seems that Next Day Air wasn't really the right vehicle to advertise Mos Def's return to the hip hop game, especially because, as I understand it, Dante barely appears on screen. Though there are highlights throughout, two of the most notable tracks are at the very end: "History," where Talib Kweli joins in over a wistful J Dilla beat, and "Casa Bey," where a playful Mos Def somehow keeps up with Banda Black Rio's deliriously frantic samba funk.The Ecstatic is rapper-slash-singer-slash-actor Mos Def's fourth solo album, but you're forgiven if you had no idea this disc was dropping until you re-read last Sunday's Best Buy sales ad. Some of the productions from brothers Madlib and Oh No were pulled from their instrumental releases, including a pair from the India-themed installments of the Beat Konducta series.Īltogether, they provide much of the album's dusty off-centeredness even though "Supermagic" has Mos Def at his most energized and alert, its needling psychedelic guitars and sweeping Bollywood drama are transportive.Ĭombined with backdrops from Georgia Anne Muldrow, Preservation, the Neptunes' Chad Hugo, and the Ed Banger label's Mr.įlash, the album is a gumbo that adds juicy dub thwacks, regal synthetic horns, tangled piano vamps, dashes of spiritual jazz, and rolling Afro-beat, almost all of which is cloaked in light reverb. Oscillating between cerebral gibberish and seemingly nonchalant, off-the-cuff boasts, it's obvious that Mos Def is back to enjoying his trade.įor those who are deeply into the Stones Throw label, the album won't take quite as long to process. ![]() ![]() ![]() It was evident that he was not inspired, no doubt prompting a fair portion of his followers to think, "OK, maybe we should have been more specific: please make a good rap album." On The Ecstatic, it's not as if Mos Def makes a full return to the lucid/bug-eyed rhymes heard on decade-old cuts like "Hater Players" and "Hip Hop." Instead, he comes up with a mind-bending, low-key triumph, the kind of magnetic album that takes around a dozen spins to completely unpack. During the first several years of the 2000s, it wasn't unreasonable to want Mos Def, one of the most dazzling living MCs, to make a rap album.Īfter he released 2006's True Magic, his first all-rap release in seven years - following the back-to-back instant classics Black Star and Black on Both Sides - it was easier to understand why he had been devoting much more time to acting and diversions like The New Danger. ![]()
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