Mos Def: The Ecstatic

(out of 5)

In 1999, Mos Def took the hip-hop world by storm with his debut solo album, Black on Both Sides. The power of this record was not too surprising since Mos Def had already proved himself to be one of the most important voices in late 90’s hip-hop as one-half of the brilliant duo, Black Star, along with Talib Kweli. Black on Both Sides is likely a hip-hop masterpiece– it celebrates being black in America and its a love letter to African-American music including hip-hop (“We are hip-hop” he declares) and rock’n'roll. Yet, that record wasn’t all a party, Mos Def took some time to unpack some of the difficulties that the African-American community still faced at the turn of the century. It was an album that took seriously the problems of the past and the present but was also bursting with hope for the future and as a result it was truly the perfect album to sum up the 1990s and propel hip-hop music into a new decade, a new century, and a new millennium.

Yet, Mos Def was as unaware as everyone else about the events that would occur throughout the first decade of the new century. Def’s beloved hometown of NYC was flipped upside down in 2001, the Middle East which birthed his Islamic faith spiraled deeper into turmoil, and the United States slowly filled with distrust and paranoia of its government before finally teetering on economic collapse in 2008. During this time, Mos Def’s music career also suffered while he spent more time and energy focusing on his acting career in which he earned both critical praise and (at times) disdain for his performances. He didn’t altogether leave the music biz though, he released two mildly received albums (probably in an effort to fulfill and get released from his contract) under Geffen who had absorbed Rawkus Records, the label that released Black on Both Sides. His music career reached an all-time low with 2006’s True Magic which prompted Allmusic’s Andy Kellman to end his review with: “It’s unthinkable that Mos has nothing left in the tank for hip-hop. He must be saving his strength for the next release.”

So in the middle of 2009, now that we finally get to hear Def’s new album, The Ecstatic (which he’s been talking about since 2007), we can agree with Kellman’s prophetic assessment, Mos Def has just been saving up his creative abilities. Appearing on a brand new label, Downtown, Mos Def sounds brighter and looser than he has in years. He’s created an album that flows together as well as any hip-hop album of recent years. Each song bleeds and runs right into the next one, but that’s only half the album’s genius. The other half lies in the variety of musical styles and instruments that are showcased here. The opener, “Supermagic” plays on the role of African-Americans’ contributions in developing rock’n'roll (a subject he treated on Black on Both Sides) by placing a searing rock guitar as the backbone of the song, the guitar drops out and the funky, jazzy horns of “Twilite Speedball” take center stage. He also builds a song around handclaps on the terrific “Quiet Dog Bite Hard” and includes plenty of Eastern instruments and rhythms throughout the record. The Ecstatic carefully combines live instruments with samples and beats and displays clear influences from jazz, funk, soul, and rock at every turn– all while sounding like a completely new and original recording.

Another of The Ecstatic’s masterstrokes is the pace at which the album moves. Its sixteen songs blow by in 45 minutes with most songs clocking in at around three minutes or less (with only two breaking the four minute mark). On many of these songs, Mos Def has abandoned the typical verse-chorus-verse structure in favor of verse-verse-chorus or verse-verse-verse. While this move could have easily made the songs sound half-baked or incomplete that’s not the case here– these songs sound as though they were put to tape in bursts and fits of creativity. Surprisingly, this creative energy comes across on each and every listen. The album seems to recreate itself with each spin– new lyrics rise to the surface while hidden instruments and new rhythms make themselves known.

Just as he did in 1999, Mos Def has created a perfect record to sum up a decade and prepare us for moving into the next one. On “Life in Marvelous Times,” which in many ways functions as the center piece for the record, Mos Def sums up an entire decade with just a couple lines: “And we are alive in amazing times/delicate hearts, diabolical minds/revelations, hatred, love, and war…It’s just too much for your mind to absorb.” These words appear over a killer beat and a synth line that could be in any number of horror films and it all falls together to create a perfect song. And Mos Def is spot on with his description of the days we live in. When the history books record this decade they’ll likely focus on the awful, horrific events, but Mos Def reminds us that the good is always mixed in with the bad. Love and war will always exist side by side in this world. And adding another dose of wisdom, he concludes the song with “It’s scary like hell, there’s no doubt/But we can’t be alive in no time but now.”

And here we catch a glimpse of The Ecstatic’s purpose. It’s not to warn us like he did on Black on Both Sides, its to encourage us, to lift us up. Mos Def turns our attention to mysteries, “signs and wonders,” and revelations here. He knows what his listeners are feeling, he knows the decade that we just lived through, and he crafts a record of hope and celebration. A record which points toward a brighter future and is willing to let some things in the past stay there for now. Interestingly, The Ecstatic is not quite as explicitly political as one might expect in 2009. Slick Rick sings from the perspective of a soldier in Iraq on “Auditorium,” but other than that there is very little mention of the government and the war. While, racial issues are never far from the table, its clear that even they are taking a back seat here. The record opens with an appropriate quote from Malcolm X:

You are living in a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built and the only way its going to be built is with extreme methods and 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.

Those words were spoken decades ago but fit perfectly in our world today. This is the time for divisions to fall by the way side and for people to unite and move toward a brighter age. Mos Def is again willing to be one of the many ecstatics to point us in the right direction. And this is one of Mos Def’s greatest gifts, to be able to sum up a decade and to be the voice for the people– not necessarily the voice that we’ve choosen, but the voice that we need to hear. To state it simply, The Ecstatic is a brilliant record– probably one of the best that 2009 will give us. Though The Ecstatic may not quite reach the level of brilliance displayed on Black on Both Sides, it reveals that the master is back at work. Let’s pray that we don’t have to wait until 2019 for Mos Def’s next work of genius.

Mos Def
The Ecstatic
Downtown, 2009

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