Its been a while since Mos Def has dropped an album, but for me, his voice is still one of guiding lights in hip hop, conquering the underground in the mid 90′s, not so prolyphic in the following decade, but retaining a fresh approach to production, and a distinguished voice.
Music has taken a back seat for Mos Def, venturing into the world of movies in 2000 with Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, also staring in Monsters Ball in 2001, The Italian Job remake in 2003, Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy in 2005 and the rather excellent Be Kind Rewind with Jack Black in 2008, including television work with HBO production house, and providing his voice for cult animated series The Boondocks.
The Ecstatic, his fourth solo album, gets back to basics, the basics of golden age hip hop legends like A Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One and De La Soul, keeping things simple and uncomplicated. While many hip hop MC’s today rap about trivialities, Mos Def heads up the current resurgence of socially concious lyricism, featuring guest appearances from Slick Rick and Talib Kweli, and teaming up with powerhouse producers J. Dilla, Madlib, Chad Hugo from N.E.R.D. and Oh No.
The Production prowess shows, with a powerful bomblastic approach, the guitar licks of the opener ‘Supermagic’, incorporating a middle-eastern theme, a recuring theme present in ‘Auditorium’, ‘Wahid’ and ‘The Embassy’, the lyrics tackling subject matter that is still an uneasy thing in the US, but Mos Def pulls it off with much skill. Straight up good time funk is also heavily represented here, ‘Twilite Speedball’, ‘Quiet Dog Bite Hard’, ‘Pretty Dancer’, ‘Revelations’, and ‘Casa Bey’ provoke images of good times gone by.
The ability for Mos Def to shift between rap, singing and speech has always been a major strength, and his work on The Ecstatic reinforces this fact, and working with the producers he has, will cement this album as a classic. Fresh.
Wayne Stronell
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