The Ecstatic

The Ecstatic is the fourth studio album by American hip hop artist Mos Def, released June 9, 2009 on Downtown Records. The album was recorded during 2007 to 2009, and production was handled by J Dilla, Mr. Flash, Madlib, Mos Def, Oh No, Preservation, and The Neptunes. The Ecstatic features samples of several diverse musical styles, including soul, Afrobeat, jazz, funk, and Latin music, and has been noted by music writers for its "out-of-the-crates" samples.

The album debuted at number nine on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 39,000 copies in its first week. It serves as Mos Def's second highest charting album to date. Upon its release, The Ecstatic received general acclaim from most music critics, and it earned Mos Def a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Album. Rolling Stone magazine named it the seventeenth best album of 2009.

Background

In a podcast interview with Anthony DeCurtis at the 92nd Street Y, Mos Def stated that he named the album after the book The Ecstatic by Victor LaValle.^[1] The album features collaborations with Slick Rick, Talib Kweli and Georgia Anne Muldrow,^[2] as well as production by Mr. Flash and the late J Dilla.^[3] The album cover is taken from Charles Burnett's 1977 film, Killer of Sheep. It samples several diverse musical styles, including soul, Afrobeat, eurodance, jazz, funk, and Latin music, and has been noted by music writers for its "out-of-the-crates" samples.^[4][5][6][7]

Release and promotion

In live shows, Mos Def performed new songs from the album before its release. Crowds had heard tracks produced by Madlib and Oh No (Madlib’s younger brother). The album's first single, "Life in Marvelous Times", was released November 4, 2008.^[8] Its second single, "Quiet Dog", was produced by Preservation and released January 13, 2009.^[9] Released May 2009,^[10] the third single "Casa Bey" was promoted through a music video that was released via Mos Def's Myspace page.^[11] On June 18, 2009, Mos Def stated that he will start selling the album by T-shirts sometime in July 2009 with a code on the tag, which will be used to download off the Internet for free.^[12] So far, Mos Def has released music videos for the songs "Casa Bey," ^[13] "Supermagic" ^[14] and "History" with Talib Kweli.^[15]

Reception

Commercial performance

The Ecstatic debuted at number nine on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 39,000 copies in its first week.^[16][17] It also entered at number two in mp3-format album sales on Amazon.com.^[18] In its second week on the Billboard 200, the album fell to number 29 on the chart with 16,000 copies sold.^[19] In its third week, the album sold 9,200 copies, slipping to number 45 on the Billboard chart.^[20] The album slipped off of the Billboard 200 after the week of July 5, 2009, in which it sold an additional 6,600 copies at #69.^[21] The album spent 11 weeks on the Billboard 200,^[22] and has sold more than 71,000 copies.^[21]

Critical response

The Ecstatic received general acclaim from music critics.^[32] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 81, based on 27 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim".^[32] Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot praised Mos Def's "renewed commitment" and commented that the album "marks a return to form for a wayward hip-hop giant.^[4] Ben Thompson of The Observer gave the album four out of five stars and wrote that it "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 listeners with a limited experience with hip hop music.^[7] Ed Potton of The Times called it a "kaleidoscopic album" and cited the track "Life in Marvelous Times" as its centerpiece.^[31] Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson complimented Mos Def's lyrical consciousness and stated "the entire album careens wildly, free from the constraints of chorus and verse, like the best from Stones Throw's back catalogue".^[29] J. Gabriel Boylan of Spin praised Mos Def's lyricism, citing it as his finest full-length since Black on Both Sides".^[30] NME's Pete Cashmore gave the album a rating of seven out of 10, commenting that most of its music is "simply good, honest hardcore hip-hop given a twist by MD’s slurred, inebriated delivery and use of odd imagery".^[33]

Allmusic's Andy Kellman complimented the album's "dusty off-centeredness", calling it "a mind-bending, low-key triumph, the kind of magnetic album that takes around a dozen spins to completely unpack".^[23] Allison Stewart of The Washington Post called The Ecstatic "most cohesive, most album like thing he's ever done" and described its music as "a riotous mix of incendiary hip-hop, gentle R&B and out-of-the-crates soul, with ersatz flamenco thrown in for good measure".^[5] Andrew Martin of PopMatters commented that "Each track flows into the next perfectly and makes it feel like an album and not just a collection of songs", writing that it "feels like the album Mos has always wanted and intended to make. It’s experimental and progressive without being too left-field and isolating".^[34] Steve Jones of USA Today gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars and commented that its "varied, muscular rhythms [...] underpin Mos Def's insightful musings on love, politics, religion and social conditions".^[35] In his consumer guide for MSN Music, critic Robert Christgau gave The Ecstatic an A rating and praised its "half associative rhymes that clock in under two-and-a-half minutes, devoid of hooks but full of sounds you want to hear again".^[24] Christgau described it as "a dream mixtape -- one unresolved track morphing into the next to define a world hip-hop with poles in Brooklyn and Beirut", and elaborated on the album's thematic content as a whole, stating:

[T]he vision justifies the Malcolm X intro. In "The Embassy," Mos Def describes a luxury hotel as an outsider, too aware to come on like one of those thug fools who think they own a joint that'll blacklist them five years from now. And in the Bed-Stuy lookback "Life in Marvelous Times" he offers a credo: "More of less than ever before/It's 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."^[24]

—Robert Christgau

Rolling Stone magazine named it the seventeenth best album of 2009.^[36] Rhapsody (online music service) called it the 4th best album of 2009.^[37] Spin ranked the album number seven on its list of the year's best albums.^[38] In 2009, The Ecstatic was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, and its single "Casa Bey" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance, both set at the 52nd Grammy Awards.^[39]

Track listing

Personnel

Charts

References

External links

• The Ecstatic at Discogs
• The Ecstatic at Metacritic
• Album Review at About.com
• Album Review at Time Out