The June release of his fourth solo album The Ecstatic, was a musical success. Many were worried due to the under marketing and almost invisibility of his third album True Magic, but Mos Def did not disappoint. The opening speech sets the tone for not only the album, but is reminiscent of the revolutionary ethos echoing through out the world today, domestic and abroad. On the album, Mos challenges political, social, religious ideologies, while still giving us the freshly unique Brooklyn flavor. Mos told some of the most relevant and gripping stories of the 21st century, the most apparent being the relationship between the US and the Middle East. He used his overly vivid rhyme scheme to blanket these stories over the eclectic production of Madlib, Chad Hugo, and others. Although the production seems to be all over the place from the heavy guitar riffs in the opening record “Super Magic” to the Arabian samples in “Embassy”, there lyrics are consistent and purposeful.
Mos gives the public a look into the consciousness of a devout Muslim with songs like “Auditorium”, “Wahid”, and “Priority”. He is able to capture the texture of each ideology by sprinkling pertinent monologues and dialogues through the album like he does on “Quiet Dogs Bite Hard”. These songs are driven by something bigger than music, dedicated to showing the world the Muslims are more than just radical jihadists committed to insidiously heinous acts, and the close relationship that Muslims have with their God or “Allah”. There weren’t many collabos on the album, but you could almost guess that Talib was going to be on the record along with a pleasantly surprising collab with Slick Rick. You can see the maturation in Mos with the way he stitches the song to the track. The entire album was constructed in an almost ad-hock format with multiple songs as short as 1:42. The short chorus-less songs blended with the random monologues almost play a movie in you headphones rather than an album. The material is so warranted and lawful that your typical 15 song 3:13 sec each wouldn’t justify the message. All in all, this is a very strong album with classic material.
Auditorium ft. Slick Rick – The Ecstatic
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