Mos def the ecstatic disc art6/6/2023 “What?” I repeated, still confused by the idea of the rapper-whose music played a prominent part in the soundtrack of my youth-releasing an album at Art Basel in Hong Kong, of all the places in the world. “He’s doing it with The Third Line,” she responded, referring to the Dubai-based gallery. Then again, as he says himself, he’s “ too busy surviving to be arguing about Darwin.The artist formerly known as Mos Def released Negus at Art Basel in Hong Kong-but you could only listen to it if you were there.Īs I perused through the art-filled booths of Art Basel in Hong Kong on its Private View Day-the preview day reserved for collectors, media, and other assorted VIPs-a fellow journalist named Monica Salazar told me the most random thing: “Mos Def is having a listening party at Art Basel,” she said. Instead, The Ecstatic is Mos Def maintaining his vigor and skill as an MC while allowing the beats to evolve into new and strange forms. Mos Def hasn’t been astray for too long, so it might be a bit of a misnomer to call The Ecstatic a return to form, a weirdly positive term that implies that an artist is best when not experimenting with his art. He continues this trend with lead single “Life in Marvelous Times.” The rapper paints a sad picture of the streets over a lush, booming, almost celebratory beat as busy as his setting, yet accepts the sound and fury with proclamations like “ we can’t be alive in any time but now” and that “ we are alive in amazing times.” Opening with a Malcolm X sound bite (Is this a cliché? Either way, it works) that gives way to a violent guitar beat, he chants about rumors of wars on “Revelations” and evokes international espionage over a belly dance sample on “The Embassy.” “Auditorium” proves to be the album’s standout moment, with a haunting antique string-based beat by Madlib and Slick Rick rapping from the perspective of a “ soldier in Iraq” in a guest verse that somehow manages to upstage Mos in his own song.ĭespite his politics, Mos Def always remained one of the more uplifting socially conscious rappers (honestly, how many somber hip-hop acts can you think of?). Overt politics above all make The Ecstatic on par with Mos Def’s best work. Excessive guest rappers are one of the worst indulgences of hip-hop, and Mos Def continues to buck the trend by featuring only three guests on The Ecstatic, including his Blackstar partner Talib Kweli. Most welcome, however, is the lack of guest rappers. Even though the strongest songs appear in the album’s first half, The Ecstatic never quite feels like it overstays its welcome. While a 16-track rap album may seem daunting, forcing listeners to prepare for an overlong bore (most MCs seriously need to self-edit), the whole affair clocks in at 45 minutes, with some songs lasting under two minutes. What keeps the album from becoming by-the-numbers is Mos Def’s restraint. A song like “Priority,” with its minimalist piano beat, sounds like it was ripped straight out of the RZA Production Handbook circa 1994, but in a good way. It’s not all experimentation, though, as The Ecstatic features more conventional trappings like soul samples. Flash) make the unconventional instruments bend to the genre. Using instruments like xylophones and horns, Mos and his producers (including Madlib, Preservation and Mr. Instead of sounding like a rock song with Mos rapping over it, “Supermagic” uses a guitar loop as part of the beat, a synthesis of rap and rock that recalls the re-appropriation and incorporation treatment hip-hop has given to soul and R&B. Tracks like “Twilight Speedball” and the Zepplin-esque (seriously) “Supermagic,” with their guitar-centric beats, are like an accomplishment of what Mos attempted on The New Danger. What’s most impressive most about The Ecstatic is the instrumentation. After the lukewarm reception to the appreciably ambitious The New Danger and the confusingly half-assed, probably contractually-obligated True Magic, the mighty Mos Def has returned with The Ecstatic, a comeback album that lives up to its title, combining the energy of Black on Both Sides with the experimental quality of The New Danger. Sonic Youth (average age: 50.6) releasing an album is still a big deal, while the Wu-Tang Clan (average age: 39) is treated like a gaggle of geriatrics. It feels like many MCs lose their touch the longer they’re divorced from their humble origins, and it doesn’t help that hip-hop is always about the Next Big Thing. To many of us, Mos Def seemed like socially conscious hip-hop’s answer to Ice Cube: a talented rapper who fell to the allure of Hollywood and ended up better known as an actor (though Mos works with Michel Gondry and Garth Jennings, while Cube’s happy trading pratfalls for paychecks).
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