Q-Tip's recent The Renaissance set a pretty high bar for highly evolved 90s rappers returning to claim their post-Obama inheritance. And this improbably impeccable fifth album by Mos Def - aka Brooklyn's Dante Smith - sails elegantly over it.
On first hearing, it's the musical and lyrical dynamism of The Ecstatic's predominantly eastward-looking first half that really grabs the attention - especially Slick Rick's inspired Iraq war-themed cameo appearance on the instant classic Auditorium w/The Ruler. But with time, the more laid-back, Latin and reggae-tinged delights of the album's second half (No Hay Nada Mas's summery Spanish-language jam, the heady scent of Georgia Anne Muldrow's Roses) come through every bit as strongly.
Like many of the golden generation of New York rappers whose rise was tied up with the New York independent label Rawkus, Mos Def seemed to lose his way somewhat after switching to a major. But just as his co-headlining appearance with Jack Black in Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind and a sequence of Emmy, Tony, Obie and Golden Globe nomination-winning acting performances seemed to signal the end of his career's MC phase, The Ecstatic blasts it into another dimension.
The irresistible Quiet Dog is Beyoncé's Single Ladies ... with Noam Chomsky on remix duties, Pretty Dancer proclaims the survival of the phattest ("Too busy surviving to argue about Darwin, darlin'") and History's emotional reunion with Talib Kweli will have people whose lives were changed by Rawkus's first Soundbombing compilation crying into their port and lemon.
Mos Def's unhappy recent appearance on US talk show host Bill Maher's Real Time may have given YouTube viewers cause to doubt his political perspicacity, but his analytical skills are beyond reproach on this album. And Slick Rick's immortal guest verses contain more compressed humanity than is to be found in the entire oeuvre of Mos Def's TV tormentor, Christopher Hitchens.
With musical borrowings that range from Banda Black Rio to Selda Bagcan and Fela Kuti to Mary Wells, The Ecstatic is undoubtedly a crate-digger's wet dream. But far more importantly, it also offers a thrillingly accessible demonstration of hip-hop's limitless creative possibilities to those whose experience of the medium stretches no farther than the occasional random episode of Run's House.
Ben Thompson
