Reviews
Mos Def’s “The Ecstatic”
Loading ...
After 1999’s Black on Both Sides, no one except maybe Nas has been so continually judged against their first album. However as an artist and entertainer Mos Def has always refused to be measured on a traditional basis and has continued to follow a creative path to music that has bent and pushed perceptions on the limits of hip hop. Even if sometimes those limits were bent into a shape not so aesthetically pleasing.
The Ecstatic, Mos Def’s fourth release, exactly a decade since Black on Both Sides, presents a perplexing premise of creativity. The album sounds dope. Mos is found rhyming most of the time and the rhymes are vivid, dark and hard. When he dabbles into singing it adds to the album. The producers have assembled a similarly progressive approach to their art as the MC. However, the album has a disjointed, recycled flavor that after a three year wait since his last offering (and even 2006’s True Magic can almost be written off as a contractual concession) leaves me not quite satisfied.
The album’s underlying concept is the portrayal of the homogeneous human condition of 2009 set against the familiar background of Brooklyn and hip hop. This is captured by a series of loosely woven, shadowed vignettes. The album’s cover, taken from Charles Burnett’s 1977 neorealist film Killer of Sheep, and the Malcolm X prelude act as the initial global extension of a dark portrait of Bed Stuy. The album combines both Burnett’s documentation of the urban African American existence with X’s global lament on “this miserable condition that exists on this earth.”
Oh No’s haunting Turkish vocal sample and ripping guitar line on the opener “Supermagic” immediately punctuates the albums art and intro track. On “Auditorium,” Madlib provides a poignant, Bollywood background to the strain of the quiet acquiescence of “the universal ghetto life.” Mos graphically evokes the lost desire of the worlds poor, “its really no joke, you feel it in the street, people breathe without hope, going through the motions, dimming down the focus. The focus gets cleared then the light turn sharp and their eyes grow teary, their mind grows weary.” Over more minimalist Madlib production, “Wahid” sees Mos offer a nihilistic vision of our generation, “Gun smoke, young folk living any kinda way.”
My favorite portion of the album comes from the two song combination of “Quiet Dog Bite Hard” and “Life in Marvellous Times,” the tracks are the most indicative of a “vintage Mos Def.” “Quiet Dog Bite Hard” provides the obligatory “wack MC” call out track. Over a kettledrum driven, exclusively percussion beat, Mos’s multisyllabic vocabulary is executed with an infinitely smooth flow. “Life in Marvelous Times” is the most harrowing track on the album. In a slick satiric comparison of the MC’s own beginnings in the Bed Stuy projects to the contemporary ubiquitous pursuit of materialism, Mos Def reveals each existence as equally empty. The personification of the project buildings themselves is an incredibly effective depiction of the suffering and anger associated with these living conditions. Then the most striking lines of the album round out the image of the modern mindset: “Revelations, hatred, love and war, and more and more and more and more, and more of less than ever before, its just too much more for your mind to absorb. It’s scary like hell, but there’s no doubt we can’t be alive in no time but NOW!”
The following tracks become slightly more eccentric and sadly, at times slightly tedious. ”No Hay Mada Mas,“ sees Mos rhyme and sing exclusively in Spanish and although the content breaches my linguistic understanding, the beat is beautifully layered. ”Pistola” an interesting philosophical perspective of love as a gunfight is the album’s first stumble and comes across as hollow and dull. Captivation is further lost on the following tracks with the adoption of an MF Doom-esque flow. However the socially satiric heat is still present as Mos continues his universal critique: “Lay off the bacon and the smokes and quit laying off the good working folks.”
Things liven up again with the album’s closing tracks that are refreshingly optimistic. Dilla continues to rival 2pac for posthumous production with the beat to ”History,” an ideal sample for some Black Star nostalgia. Talib Kweli continues his recent stellar guest spot work as the duo stress an appreciation for who and what has gone before them, a retrospective recognition that current hip hop so often seems to lack. The final track “Casa Bey” rocks a soulful sample of Brazillian samba/funk fusion band Banda Black Rio and features an equally playful Mos.
However, while Mos Def is lyrically relevant and powerful there is something distinctly fishy about the albums musical production. The fact is, I have heard most of it all before. The tracks provided by Madlib, Oh No, Mr Flash and Georgia Anne Muldrow are all recycled.
The beat on “Wahid” is an ironic rehash of “The Rip Off” taken from Madlib’s Beat Konducta India album the same place the beat for “Auditorium,” can be found. “Revelations” manages to sound so much like Doom because the beat is taken form “Madvillany 2.” Oh No’s contributions can be found on “Dr. No’s Oxperiment” and Billy Wooten’s “The Funky 16 Corners.” And although “Life in Marvelous Times” is sporting a heavily re-mastered and thoroughly crisper version of Mr. Flash’s “Champion,” it is still a beat I have already heard. Most distressing is “Roses,” which sees Mos punch in over a song already featured on Georgia Anne Muldrow’s own album. It’s just more and more and more of the same as before.
My concept of an album is of a product born out of a distinct creative process. The music should share similar thematic backgrounds and conceptions. To attempt to pass off songs without hooks, MF Doom like rhyme schemes and a song in Spanish as creativity will have some duped, however I feel a little shortchanged.
That said, the album sounds really good. Mos is bringing fire from the booth and even when he doesn’t the results are still pleasant. He comes hard with a vivid, urgent and pertinent rhetoric, well complimented by music that I had sadly already heard. I envy those who don’t check for Stones Throw.
Preview the Album below.
What do you think about Mos Def’s “The Ecstatic?”
Simon is a regular contributor to Deft Magazine and active in the hip hop community in Paris. He earned his Bachelors of Law and Arts from New Zealand's University of Otago, Simon was also a DJ on Radio One Dunedin, in Otago, New Zealand.
You might also like
|
|
|
|
|
