Mos Def, The Ecstatic Full Album Zip
Francoise Witsell
People looking for offhanded symbolism can feel free to try tracking Mos Def's career trajectory as an MC through his album covers. Iconic solo debut Black on Both Sides: a stark, immediately-striking photo portrait that renders the attribution of his name unnecessary. Aggro experimental follow-up The New Danger: that same face now obscured by a stick-up man's mask, his bright red, bloody-looking index fingertip pointing to his own head on some Taxi Driver shit. Contractual obligation mishap True Magic: no actual album art whatsoever, with a blank-looking Mos staring into space off the surface of the disc itself. And now The Ecstatic, which depicts not Mos Def himself but a red-tinted shot from Charles Burnett's classic 1977 film Killer of Sheep. You might go so far as to say this indicates that the best way for Mos Def to reassert what he really means as an artist would be to take his as-seen-in-Hollywood face out of the equation entirely, replacing it with a shot from an entirely different strain of independent, neorealist cinema that more clearly gets at what he represents as a lyricist. Maybe it's a stretch, but what the hell.
And while Burnett's Watts isn't quite the same place as Mos Def's Bed-Stuy, it does exist as one of many geographical reference points in The Ecstatic's international style. This is Mos Def's small-globe statement, an album that comfortably jumps stylistically across continents on a hip-hop goodwill-ambassador tour, prefaced by a statement from Malcolm X during his 1964 appearance at Oxford: "I, for one, will join in with anyone, I don't care what color you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth." It's a high-minded intro for an album that most people will hear first and foremost as the comeback bid of a rapper-turned-actor, but it also serves as an important indication that Mos actually gives a shit here, and that he has a stake in something greater than just one corner of the rap world.
It starts with the production, which originates from assorted French touch cats (Mr. Flash) and Stones Throw siblings (Oh No; Madlib) and the producer from True Magic who actually contributed a couple decentish beats (Preservation). Oh No usefully repurposes some of the Turkish psych from his album Dr. No's Oxperiment, particularly the massive Selda-sampling acid-rock monster "Heavy" for lead track "Supermagic". Madlib contributes a couple tracks from his Beat Konducta in India series, diverting in their original form but done real justice by Mos' rhythm-sparring flow (and, in the case of "Auditorium", Slick Rick's). Ed Banger alum Mr. Flash covers the Caribbean ("Worker's Comp"), the Middle East ("Embassy"), and neon Euro-American club-kid slickness ("Life in Marvelous Times"). And Mos' own co-production touches in conjunction with Preservation's beats drive it all home: "Quiet Dog" opens with a defiant Fela Kuti soundbite, "Casa Bey" is built off Banda Black Rio's samba-funk number "Casa Forte", and Mos spends the entirety of "No Hay Nada Mas" rapping and singing in Spanish. There's a good chance you've heard some of this before-- aside from the aforementioned Oh No and Madlib contributions, "Life in Marvelous Times" recycles Mr. Flash's beat for "Champions", his collaboration with French rappers TTC-- but it's not a stale familiarity, at least in the context of The Ecstatic's ambitious B-boy diaspora.
The Ecstatic is the fourth album by American rapper Mos Def, released on June 9, 2009, by the independent record label Downtown Records. 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. He worked with producers such as Preservation, Mr. Flash, Oh No, and Madlib, with the latter two reusing instrumentals they had produced on Stones Throw Records. 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.
Described by music journalists as a conscious and alternative hip hop record, The Ecstatic features an eccentric, internationalist quality. 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. 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 titled the album after one of his favorite novels, Victor LaValle's The Ecstatic (2002), believing its titular phrase evoked his singular musical vision. For the album's front cover, a still from Charles Burnett's 1978 film Killer of Sheep was reproduced in red tint.
The Ecstatic charted at number nine on the Billboard 200 in its first week of release and eventually sold 168,000 copies. Its sales benefited from its presence on Internet blogs and the release of a T-shirt illustrating the record's packaging alongside a label printed with a code redeemable for a free download of the album. To further support the album, Mos Def embarked on an international tour with concerts in North America, Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom between August 2009 and April 2010. As his DJ on the tour, Preservation began to develop remixes of the album's songs, which he later released on the remix album The REcstatic in 2013.
A widespread critical success, The Ecstatic was viewed as a return to form for Mos Def and one of the best albums from 2009, with reviewers applauding its exuberant musical feel, adventurous creative range, and shrewd lyrical performances. Some publications ranked it among the greatest albums of the 2000s decade, including The Times at number 30. However, it struggled to reach mainstream audiences beyond Mos Def's fan base and led the already disillusioned rapper further away from the music industry, resulting in less recorded work from him over subsequent years.
By the mid 2000s, Mos Def had established himself as one of hip hop music's leading auteurs with records that sold millions of copies while realizing a pan-African worldview, although the rapper grew increasingly wary of the music industry.[1] In 2006, his third album True Magic was released haphazardly by Geffen Records to fulfill a contractual obligation while he was devoting more time to his acting career.[2] The quality of the album, along with his repeated ventures away from recording hip hop, left "some fans wondering if Mos Def's acting accomplishments were finally affecting his music", PopMatters critic Quentin B. Huff chronicles.[3] Speaking with Spank Rock for Interview magazine, Mos Def expressed a jadedness with the commodifying aspect of the hip hop industry and elucidated his artistic goals at the time:
Along with Madlib, Oh No, and J Dilla, Muldrow had been an affiliate of Stones Throw Records; according to journalist Nathan Rabin, they collectively produced half of the album, lending its sound a "sympathetic" quality.[12] During the recording, Mos Def was also influenced by fellow rapper MF Doom, at one point improvising raps from the latter's 2004 album Mm..Food while in the studio. "He rhymes as weird as I feel", he said of Doom, citing his Madlib collaboration Madvillainy (2004) as well.[13] With The Ecstatic, Mos Def said he wanted to offer listeners sincere, uninhibited observations about life and love, "some truth and positive heart lift", without the need for club songs. "No disrespect to [the club]".[14]
The Ecstatic covers an international range of styles in a very loose and extemporaneous manner, held together by what Rabin describes as "a lyrical and sonic fascination with life beyond the Western World".[16] According to Robert Christgau, the songs average two-and-a-half minutes and segue into one another without resolution, giving it the feel of a globally influenced hip hop mixtape "with poles in Brooklyn and Beirut".[17] The music reflects Mos Def's varied interests in jazz, poetry, Eastern rhythms, psychedelia, Spanish music, and the blues.[18] The tracks on the first half are, as The Observer's Ben Thompson describes, "predominantly Eastward-looking", while the second half indulges more in Latin and reggae influences.[19] Other sounds sampled or explored include Afrobeat ("Quiet Dog Bite Hard"), Eurodance ("Life in Marvelous Times"), Bollywood ("Supermagic"), and Philadelphia soul.[20] "Supermagic" also draws on elements from Turkish acid rock and Mary Poppins, while on "No Hay Nada Mas", Mos Def sings and raps in Spanish over a flamenco-influenced production.[21] He sings elsewhere on the album, often breaking into sing-song vamps during his raps.[22] Along with his singing, the often sample-based music is unconventional in its use of what Preservation calls unusual time signatures and "awkward" breakdowns.[23]
According to The Independent's Simmy Richman, The Ecstatic's Eastern-influenced musical backdrop is reflective of Mos Def's "post-War on Terror" themes. Richman calls it a conscious rap record, and No Ripcord's Ryan Faughnder regards it as "socially conscious alternative hip-hop".[25] African-American studies and media scholar Sohail Daulatzai believes the album is informed by Black internationalist politics and Pan-Islamic ideas, while State magazine's Niall Byrne says it explores the theme of international relations on songs such as the Middle Eastern-influenced "The Embassy" and "Auditorium", which features an Iraq-themed guest rap by Slick Rick.[26] On "The Embassy", Mos Def raps from the perspective of an outsider about the lifestyle of an ambassador at a luxury hotel, while the opening song "Supermagic" critiques government treatment of minority groups.[27] Mos Def incorporates a number of Islamic references throughout the album, including samples of American Muslim activist Malcolm X, Turkish protest singer Selda Bağcan, and an Arab-language scene from the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers; additionally, the track "Wahid" is titled after the Arabic word for "oneness".[28]
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