![]() Hell, Mos evens finds a way to incorporate his penchant for mumble-warbling classic hip-hop tracks, an exercise he engaged in for far too long periods of time on Tru3 Magic. In fact, I’d say it does the best job of any of his solo albums at incorporating both his rapping and singing talents. The tracks take elements of everything from Afrobeat to traditional Indian and Middle Eastern music.īut even with the clear Madvillain/DOOM influences, The Ecstatic still very much feels like a Mos Def album. Beat-wise, he enlists a whole host of producers, including Madlib himself and his younger brother Ohno, to provide him with a trippy soundscape. There are still 16 tracks on the album, but barely half of them exceed three minutes in length, keeping Ecstatic running a little over 45 minutes. Mos keeps things brief, often kicking one verse or two short ones before moving on. However, the album still appealed to fans of Mos’ music and is one of the best hip-hop albums released in 2009. With The Ecstatic, he channels DOOM in terms of execution and creates an album more bugged and left-of-center than anything that he recorded previously. Mos had always been a left-of-center, bugged out emcee, and that holds true on even his most “traditional” efforts. During this period, Mos seemed to focus more on his film career than his musical output, and the lack of interest showed.įortunately, The Ecstatic was a return to form for Mos Def, in terms of quality if not style. ![]() While New Danger was at least sincere, Tru3 Magic was completely phoned in, the work of an artist trying to get out of his record deal. ![]() And then he followed New Danger up with Tru3 Magic (2006), an album that lacked both ambition and direction. He followed up BOBS with the extremely ambitious but ultimately bloated and directionless The New Danger (2004). Unfortunately, Mos’ musical journey got a little bumpy through most of the ’00s. People, including myself, believed it was the beginnings of what was to be a storied career. Between Black Star (1998), his team-up with Talib Kweli, and Black On Both Sides, Mos Def was shaping up to be something truly special: a dynamic and charismatic personality who could rap, sing, and even act. The Ecstatic came a decade after Mos’ Black On Both Sides (1999), his successful and acclaimed debut solo album. Released 10 years ago, its Mos Def’s version of Madvillainy. And it makes sense that he was singing the praises of the Metal Faced Terrorist in this setting, because The Ecstatic is very much influenced by DOOM. While these moments were being taped, Mos was in the studio to record The Ecstatic, his fourth solo project. And I stared at it and I just kept going, ‘…I understand you.’” I bought it on vinyl just to stare at the album. “I swear to God, when I saw that Madvillain record, I bought it on vinyl I ain’t have a record player. “Actually, it would be fun, because he rhymes as weird as I feel,” he responds. When someone off-screen then suggests it might be a challenge for Mos to write with DOOM, Mos smirks a little. He stands in the studio, effortlessly spitting DOOM verses, mostly from songs from MM… Food (2014). Note: ‘The Ecstatic’ is not currently available in authorized form via major streaming platforms, hence the absence of embedded audio in this article.Ībout 10 years ago, a video popped up on YouTube of Dante “ Yasiin Bey” Smith formerly known as The Mighty Mos Def showing his love for MF DOOM. ![]() Mos has one of those voices that'd make you holler if he were reading furniture assembly instructions in Esperanto, but when he goes from an all-too-short burst of rapidfire big-up-Bed-Stuy verse to an extended bit of rambling poetry that sounds like the go-hard version of "Umi Says", it's kind of tempting to just zone out and let the sound of his voice overtake the words.Happy 10th Anniversary to Mos Def’s fourth studio album The Ecstatic, originally released June 9, 2009. Now what he's rapping about, that's yet to be determined. And if you were holding your breath for something that'd give his flow a bit of a workout, go ahead and exhale: Mos sounds more electrified than he has in ages sparring with the rhythm and throwing down emphases that have the same kind of slippery liveliness that the horns do. So Mos took it back to Brooklyn, got DJ Preservation and Dante Smith to chop it up a little, and wound up with a funky-ass samba beat to rock over. According to the PR around this new single from the upcoming The Ecstatic, Mos Def happened to be in South America for some reason or another- scouting locations for The Brazilian Job before it got caught up in development hell, maybe?- and got hipped to Banda Black Rio's " Casa Forte" via Rio de Janeiro hip-hop artist MV Bill.
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