Mos Def, The Ecstatic
Featured Album
Mos returns to show us how rapping is supposed to sound
Comparing The Ecstatic to decade-old, deified Mos Def classics like Black Star and Black On Both Sides is juggling apples and oranges in a time warp. Let's just say the rapper/actor has re-engaged his "A" game and delivered one of the ten best hip-hop platters of 2009.
The beats on The Ecstatic elasticize from cinematic Bollywood to stripped-down Brooklyn. Its spoken-word samples of Malcolm X and Fela Kuti are perfectly calibrated mood-setters, its guest rappers are old-school all-stars too vibrant for nostalgia. The bountiful highlights include producer Madlib purloining his Beat Konducta in India series while Slick Rick plays naive soldier in Baghdad in "Auditorium." Then there's the pair of tracks from producer Preservation, who steals the show from the bigger names, first by applying a warm, laconic, piano-and-trumpet groove on "Priority," then by pirouetting off Fela's Afrocentric verbal sentiments with a brittle, pile-driver polyrhythm of wood blocks and hand claps — hopscotchin', jump-ropin 'music — on "Quiet Dog Bite Hard." Finally, Black Star die-hards will freak to hear Mos reunite with Talib Kweli over a guitar-heavy J Dilla mix on "History."
Mos Def commands the project with intellectual rigor, stylistic adventure and artistic intuition, coming hard and grimy over Oh No's jazzy mix on "Pistola," spitting political wordplay ("lay off the bacon and smokes/and quit laying off the hard-working folks") over Madlib's brilliantly silly mix (a "West Side Story" for nursery school, complete with skittering vibes) on "Revelations," and rhyming "Darwin" with "darlin'" on the spare "Pretty Dancer." As he finishing his elated talk-song on the closing "Casa Bey," purposefully invoking Black Star and Boogie Down Productions, you'll want to hit replay on this ecstatic tour de force.
