We don’t have to pretend to get excited about new Lil’ Wayne records or scream about Jay-Z’s newest blueprint. There are still hip hop artists making smart, nuanced, beat-smart records. His latest and possibly greatest is a momentous hip hop occasion. Her Angie Stone-inspired soul brings Mos to a softer place where his voice begins to sound better than John Legend’s. “Roses” features a lesser known Georgia Anne Muldrow from Stones Throw Records who kills a bluesy, heartfelt R&B vocal over tickly piano flourishes. “History,” with Talib Kweli is a standout and harkens back to his earlier days of late ’90s brainy hip hop. Rick raps to a “young Iraqi kid”: “What’s wrong, G, hungry? / No, give me my oil and get the f#$* out my country!” Other collaborations shine on this record, too. Mos Def's raps about global politics, love, spirituality, and social conditions are. The album has been described as a conscious and alternative hip hop record with an eccentric, internationalist quality. In fact, with the strongest track on the record, “Auditorium,” which tumbles into its hypnotic head-bobbing beat with a far east intro before Slick Rick delivers a syrupy smooth Iraq-oriented story, Mos delivers his most worldly message. The Ecstatic was a widespread critical success, viewed as a huge return to form for Mos Def and one of the decade's best hip-hop albums. Mos has always had a curious fascination with injustice and Afrocentricism but it doesn’t always come off as nuanced and classy as it does here.
Actor who played Brother Baines in Spike Lees Malcolm X. From the Bollywood-influenced opener “Supermagic,” which features a ’64 Malcolm X quote, to the cockpit-gun-toting-Captain intro to “The Embassy,” it’s with these that Ecstatic garners its well-deserved political descriptors. In 2003, Mos Def starred in Paramount Pictures The Italian Job, alongside Ed Norton. There are a few standouts that translate beautifully to keep a party poppin’ or dancefloor moving, namely “Twilite Speedball” and “Quiet Dog Bite Hard.” But everything flows so seamlessly the interludes and found sounds are ingenious. First off, this album is not a singles record. ?’ He was busy working on movies and other non-rap things, but where was his next Black Star or Black on Both Sides? Clearly he was fulfilling some contractual obligations but did we have to wait until Geffen let him go? Seems like it, and it was totally worth the wait.Įcstatic is a statement: “I’m back, I never left, y’all ain’t shit and now I’m gonna show you how it’s done.” In so many words that I just put in his mouth. Everyone was disappointed (with due cause) in his last few releases, all of which made fans go ‘What the. There’s a lot to say about Mos Def’s The Ecstatic. The Ecstatic has a bunch of those, smuggled inside the usual big-up Brooklyn and hip-hop preservationist lyricism and welded-to-the-beat flow that made him shine in '99, and his better turns of.
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