#MOS DEF THE ECSTATIC MALCOLM X QUOTE FULL#
Even the Malcolm X sample that opens the album can’t quell the feeling that Mos’ revolutionary capital is long-since spent, but it’s good to know that he can still save his music, if not the world. On The Ecstatic, its 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. (But Mos, why no Auto-Tune? It’s okay now!) That’s what we call re-centering. The beats are very good, more like his old school albums and the guests are awesome, Slick Ricks appearance is a great surprise and welcomed nostalgia element. But it’s also modern, with the kind of exotic pan-global production (from Euro-club to Turkish-psych) that’s a must in the post-Timbaland era. The album is lyrically perfect, Mos Def stands as one of the last great rap poets still alive, rough, emotional and joyful themes are on the album as youd expect from him. This isn’t the only sign that Mos is looking back-there’s a great cameo from old-school legend Slick Rick, and a reunion track with Talib Kweli, his former partner in the group Black Star (called “History,” no less). Check out The REcstatic (Remix Album), a new mixtape from Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) that saw the light of day. But on “Twilite Speedball,” “Quiet Dog Bite Hard,” “Life in Marvelous Times,” and many others, he rivets his limber flow to the beat and effortlessly produces the kind of good-natured braggadocio and gymnastic wordplay of his glory days. Yasiin Beys tour DJ Preservation reworks his excellent 2009 album The Ecstatic. The rootless “experimental” gambits that plagued 2006 train-wreck True Magic crop up occasionally-the Spanish-language track “No Way Nada Mas” (cool idea, but rapping in Spanish doesn’t mean you have to sound like Slowpoke Rodriguez), the cheesy patois of “Workers Comp”, and a smattering of karaoke-caliber singing.
Anniversaries are a time for reflection, and for long stretches of the album, Mos remembers with a start that he’s an exceptionally talented rapper. His latest, The Ecstatic, arrives on the 10-year anniversary of his classic debut, Black on Both Sides. His name was synonymous with the late ’90s’ resurgence of politically pugnacious hip-hop, but after his equally era-defining label, Rawkus Records, was absorbed into Interscope, Mos went mainstream as a thespian and plumbed new depths of self-indulgent awfulness as a musician. Over 50 years later, one thing is clear: Malcolm X is one of the most influential men in American history. Mos Def returns from long strange trip with excitingly coherent new albumĪt this point, you could be forgiven for knowing Mos Def as an actor rather than a musician.
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