Cymbal #16:: The Rebirth of Mos Def

If you're like me and you've heard the super-macro-phenomenal-superlative-defying-dizziness-inducing wonder that was the Black Star, the name Mos Def means a promise of a match to coloured gunpowder - something new will emerge, blue and explosive. I just listened to the new album today, and The Ecstatic is fabulous. It's giddy and loose and free from gravity or centre. It suffers from ADHD; not only does it hesitate to repeat the same trick, it's so scared of letting any one trick grow old that it nips it in the bud straight up. Each song has enough flow and sample to afford a regular MC three tracks, but Mos Def rips through material like a caterpillar in a Subway salad.

Sometimes, when you think its slow like British trip-hop, it has a trip-hammer at its heart, a relentless beating, putting its foot through the tranquility and haze that suckered you.

Mos Def - Revelations - 2009

What's driving the whole enterprise? Somewhere a fierce genius has awoken, from ashes and ice and the crumbling trophies of past glory, from the faded photographs of late nineties NYC.  And it roars. It is hyperactive and ambitious and wants to own the whole damn world.

Mos Def - Life in Marvellous Times - 2009

I don't want to make this mail-list a vehicle for album reviews, or anything where I pimp one artist, or big anyone up. I am like a child faced with an asteroid when it comes to this one. I'd feel like I was hiding it if I wasn't bigging it up. Get The Ecstatic.