![]() 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. 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. Almost every thoughtfully slurred word is comprehensible, including most of the ones he sings in Spanish, and the vision justifies the Malcolm X intro. Does anyone know where to download The Ecstatic by Mos Def I’ve found most of the songs on YouTube, but a few were blocked in Canada: The Embassy Workers Comp. Half associative rhymes that clock in under two-and-a-half minutes, devoid of hooks but full of sounds you want to hear again, it's like a dream mixtape-one unresolved track morphing into the next to define a world hip-hop with poles in Brooklyn and Beirut. You know how Will Smith makes the corny hip-hop albums you'd expect of a leading man with a sense of humor? Well, this is the arty hip-hop album you'd expect of a character actor who steals every marginal flick he's in-only unlike Smith's, Mos Def's is good. Know is a silly one: "Black Jack Johnson NYC/R-O-C-K-I-N-G." A. ![]() But an equally telling lyric on an album whose secret hero is Bad Brains' Dr. "My work is personal, I'm a workin' person/I put in work, I work with purpose," he reminds anyone who would reduce "hard work" to a right-wing slogan. Songs transmute into raps as the album shifts from Black Jack Johnson blues-metal toward smoother beats that quote Hair and twice reference What's Going On in mix and mood as well as content before building to a soulish horn band, some catchy rock nonsense overdubbed entirely by Mos Def, a heart ballad he very nearly sings, and a party-ready requiem cum call to action. Here the defining flow is sonic-a shadowy, guitar-drenched tone poem of the streets. Musically, Mos Def has always been a little dull-so caught up in his own smarts he let verbal flow carry his albums. "Brooklyn" and "Habitat" are no less geohistorical because they act locally. "New World Water" isn't just the political song of the year, it's catchy like a motherfucker. But the wealth of good-hearted reflection and well-calibrated production overwhelms one's petty objections. I hope someday he learns that what made Chuck Berry better than Elvis Presley wasn't soul, even if that rhymes with rock and roll the way Rolling Stones rhymes with (guess who he prefers) Nina Simone. "Building it now for the promise of the infinite," Black Star's star overreaches delete the right tracks, which is always the catch, and his solo CD would pack more power at 55 minutes than it does at 71.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |