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Album Review: Mos Def - The Ecstatic
by Afriyie "Free" Amankwaa

Wow! Mos Def is back on the music scene! After two not so critically acclaimed CD’s, Mos Def brings a lot of heat with this album.

I felt this album lived up to Mos Def’s image. The beats are sick [meaning hot] and get your head bouncing while enjoying Mos’s flow. “Quiet Dog,” a song strictly made for the mean streets in Brooklyn, has a nice percussion beat and reminds us Mos Def doesn’t only come with smooth and jazzy lyrics, but can be aggressive. “Life in Marvelous Times” is a trip down memory lane describing Mos Def's journey from Bedford-Stuyvesant to where he is now. The best line in the whole entire album is when Mos says “And we are alive in amazing times delicate hearts, diabolical minds - revelations, hatred, love and war.”... That just put a smile on my face and immediately made me realize that damn, this is a great CD.

“History” featuring Talib Kweli (the duo together makes up Black Star) was a track produced by the late great J. Dilla. The combination of Talib Kweli and Mos Def flowing over a J.dilla beat already lets you know this is going to be a hot track. I liked how the end of “History” had Mos Def rapping onto my favorite track on the CD, “Casa Bey.” That was just... brilliant and the flow matched perfectly. The Ecstatic is definitely something for Mos Def fans and hip hop fans all over the world to enjoy. I genuinely think this album has an abstract and unique style – the reasons I became a Mos Def in the beginning.