Mos Def titled the album after one of his favorite novels, Victor LaValle's The Ecstatic (2002), believing its titular phrase evoked his singular musical vision. Its loosely structured, lightly reverbed songs use unconventional time signatures and samples taken from a variety of international musical styles, including Afrobeat, soul, Eurodance, jazz, reggae, Latin, and Middle Eastern music. Mos Def's raps about global politics, love, war, spirituality, and social conditions are informed by the zeitgeist of the late 2000s, Black internationalism, and Pan-Islamic ideas, incorporating a number of Islamic references throughout the album. The work of Stones Throw rapper MF Doom was also cited by Mos Def as an influence, while singer Georgia Anne Muldrow, formerly of the record label, performed as one of the album's few guest vocalists, along with rappers Slick Rick and Talib Kweli.ĭescribed by music journalists as a conscious and alternative hip hop record, The Ecstatic features an eccentric, internationalist quality. Flash, Oh No, and Madlib, with the latter two reusing instrumentals they had produced on Stones Throw Records. He worked with producers such as Preservation, Mr. After venturing further away from hip hop with an acting career and two poorly received albums, Mos Def signed a recording contract with Downtown and recorded The Ecstatic primarily at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. 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 the fourth album by American rapper Mos Def, released on June 9, 2009, by the independent record label Downtown Records. Flash, 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. Combined with backdrops from Georgia Anne Muldrow, Preservation, the Neptunes' Chad Hugo, and the Ed Banger label's Mr. Altogether, 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. 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. For those who are deeply into the Stones Throw label, the album won't take quite as long to process. Oscillating between cerebral gibberish and seemingly nonchalant, off-the-cuff boasts, it's obvious that Mos Def is back to enjoying his trade. 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. After 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. 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.
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