Ecstatic Ecstatic

I've been a big fan of Mos Def's The Ecstatic since it dropped in 2009. If you have slept on it, or assumed that it was some mediocre, half-finished release, rearrange your thought processes and listen to it at once. Of course, it would be easy to assume the worst about the album, considering it seemed to have no label support, nor a single, nor any kind of promotional strategy to speak of. But it's just downright excellent.

Sixteen tracks, almost half of which are produced by Madlib, one by Dilla, a bunch of great beats by Preservation, and Mos rhyming about geopolitics and history and love. And Brooklyn. It features a guest verse from Slick Rick, who seems to be rhyming from the middle of a war-torn Baghdad (and trading verses with "a young Iraqi kid" who wins the battle with a declarative "Get the fuck out my country!"). The whole thing starts with Malcolm X and winds its way to a finale of an interstellar boogie that fades out into beautiful piano. Somehow it all holds together. And, by the way, the cover image is taken from Killer of Sheep, a movie I have referred to on this blog before.

Unfortunately, Mos Def's attitude toward performing is not as razor sharp as the production of this album. I wish he would have just performed The Ecstatic from beginning to end and then left the stage. But oh well. Here's a review of his performance from March 15 at the Shrine, which appears on Passion of the Weiss.