If Mos Def’s first outing, Black on Both Sides, was any better then he would be in the exact same boat that Nas is in now. That’s to say he’d be afflicted with the eternal sophomore jinx. Everyone is mad at Nas for never meeting the critical acclaim of Illmatic, but he really can’t help it at this point, or ever. Mos is in a similar boat; Black on Both Sides is considered a classic for good reason. Not many rappers combine peerless lyricism with socio-political tracks, jazzy vibes and gluteus maximum tributes, and even fewer can do it whether rapping or singing. See, Mos Def is an interesting case because BoBS was kind of his second album (first was with Talib Kweli as half of Black Star, an even better album in my humble peerless opinion) and when he said The New Danger was his next album people put him on a pedestal. Then they heard the album. The immediate reaction, a resounding “Ewww….”

Don’t get it twisted though; The New Danger was NOT a bad album. If anything, it was a boat change. If Mos Def was (is) on the same sort of path as Nas then The New Danger was a detour into the channels of Common territory. Like Electric Circus, the album was something of an experiment, sans the influence of a neo-soul goddess. Fusing elements of rock and rap and metal he crafted a decent album (B- at the best) that was booed like a marijuana-addicted rehab patient because it was too drastic a change from the base he established with BoBS. Did this deter the Chuck Berry of Rap? I want to say it did, because his next effort was the poorly publicized and critically canned True Magic. I know sometimes an artist has to put something out because of A&R demands (Nas, Nastradamus) or sometimes the rapper wants to do something new and fails miserably (Common, Universal Mind Control) but True Magic was bad nearly all around. There were a couple of standout tracks; scratch that, there was ONE standout track that was saved for the album. To be mean I’ll leave that for you to listen to yourself.

For three years we’ve waited for Mos Def to do something musical again. His acting career has been on a high lately (Cadillac Records; Be Kind Rewind) and he’s been pretty vocal in the world of politics and conspiracy theories, but musically, what’s he been up to lately? Aside from a few Youtube videos where he’s hinting at new shit or freestyling while drunk or just talking introspective like he always seems to do (and yet he’ll still marry a woman he’s only known for a couple of days) or about how nothing rhymes with orange… you get the irony? Until you give The Ecstatic, Mos Def’s true and powerful return to prominence, a good listen, you may not realize that Dante Smith brought us The Ecstatic long before it hit stores. If you still don’t get the irony you will when you listen to the LP.

In a return to form, Mos starts out with a standard intro (Supermagic) with a few lines, a quote I’m assuming, from who knows who (I want to say Malcolm X) and suddenly the Boogeyman busts out the gate with his crazy brand of lyrical genius, declaring that he’s back (been back for about a year if you see the irony). He goes from there right into Twilite Speedball, switching from his somewhat swift flow to a slower pace as his words perfectly compliment the tuba-laced bass line. From here Def drops down to Auditorium, the first of three guest featured songs. With the help of the legendary Slick Rick and the production of Madlib the two spit some pseudo stream of consciousness rhymes that make just as much sense as they don’t. There’s a definite reasoning behind this track, but it almost gets lost as the combination of the beat and the two legendary emcees puts the listener into a dreamlike state.

Wahid is a familiar track, lyrically at least. The second Madlib production puts yet another masterful beat behind Mos Def’s more DOOM-like flow, and considering the chemistry of Madvillainy it’s no wonder this track works so well. Drifting from Madlib for a moment to the more “soul” vibe of Preservation’s musical methodology, the Mighty Mos goes on a couple of lyrical warm-ups (exhibitions trump these but these are still better than your favorite rapper’s best verse) with Priority and Quite Dog Bite Hard. Next is the first single from the album, Life in Marvelous Times. This track had to grow on me a little bit but I’m feeling it. The beat just feels out of place in comparison to the tracks that came before it, but it sets up the rest of the album at the same time. Otherwise it’s another Mos Def lyrical warm-up (exhibitions are rare in Mos). Mr. Flash is a weird cat, as shown with the next track The Embassy, which has a “Middle Eastern” feel to it halfway through (something else I get a feel of through the LP) and, of course, Mos Def blesses the beat with his words.

No Hay Nada Mas… don’t know how to call this one. He’s either speaking Spanish or doing some scat rapping, and I am an expert in neither. Chill beat behind it, and it’s a welcome sort of intermission for the remainder of the album. I’ll be sure to do some serious translating (or I’ll pay someone to do it for me) in the near future. Otherwise I like this track, if only because it breaks the path of the album even more. Pistola is the ever-popular “love” song that every rapper has to do, but leave it to Black Dante to put a spin on it; and he does. Is he talking about the gun or the woman?

Pretty Danger is my favorite solo track off of the album because of the history I see of it. It sounds like a drunken Mos Def freestyle (which usually turns out brilliant) and the beat behind it makes it sound… inorganic. Combining the natural flow and the inorganic beat sounds like an uneven combination, but the fact that they don’t seem to meld as one, at least to me, is one of the strengths behind it. Workers Comp addresses the recession a little bit, an expected move considering Mos Def’s socio-political wordplay. Revelations, the last of the Madlib productions, is like a Saturday morning cartoon: fun to observe and over the top. The track isn’t breathtaking but the xylophones of the beat awaken feelings of nostalgia.

I thought Roses was the full version of Flowers, a video Mos Def did as a promo for this LP a while back, but while the Georgia Anne Muldrow assisted track is not Flowers arguably the most sincere track on the album. I love it the most because of the beauty of it but I don’t like that it takes forever for Mos to start spitting on it. When he does, however, he more than makes up for his delay. The short verse is a lyrical exhibition, a rarity in Mos case because his bar for such things is so high. This goes into the fleeting but exquisite dream track of History, a reunion of Mos Def and Talib Kweli (Black Star) and production from the late great James Dewitt Yancey, J. Dilla. History has the capacity to be the best track on the album if only because of how eargasmic it is to hear Black Star trade verses once again. The title says it all really. The album closes with the most recent single, Casa Bey, where Mos Def goes on one more lyrical free-for-all before coming to a close. The Ecstatic is a great album, wonderful, but how does it stack up to the others? Well it is better than True Magic but what isn’t? It is superior to The New Danger too, but does it touch Black on Both Sides? No. Why? For a number of reasons.

When I first saw the track listing for The Ecstatic I started to draw comparisons to Madvillain’s Madvillainy. Most of the tracks are rather short and the stream of consciousness wordplay complimenting the odd, sexy production, yes, sexy production. While I admit that Madvillainy is one of my favorite albums I have to admit that it’s not user-friendly for the most mainstream crowd. The fact that it wasn’t so user-friendly is part of what made it great. For Mos it doesn’t work as well; that’s to say he isn’t quite as abstract as DOOM to pull off a feat like that. The format of the album is a bit off; it flows flawlessly between tracks as if it were one huge track but the eclectic nature of the production on this LP makes the flow purely physical in its flawlessness. Also, in a small complaint, where the hell are the singing tracks? Umi Says is probably one of the best tracks off of Black on Both Sides!

The biggest problem with the LP is the same one that Nas has with his discography, and it’s an unfair gripe, but Dante has to deal with the eternal sophomore jinx as well. All of his work will be compared to Black on Both Sides (if you’re really cruel you’ll compare it to Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star) and to this day nothing has. The New Danger didn’t reach that prominence and True Magic was a total 180, but at the very least The Ecstatic is the closest Mos Def has gotten to the bar he set for himself way back when. If this is a taste of things to come from one of New York’s Thieves in the Night then he might be nearing that bar, but until then this album stands as the strongest effort since BoBS. It doesn’t achieve that same classic status, but if this is the road Mos Def is traveling now then he just might reach that status once again…

Rating: 4 out of 5

(P.S. – I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t the official release of The Ecstatic. If this was something of a precursor to the actual album I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. This is a great album, the best thing out of a legendary NY emcee in a while, but… I would use a video game reference but it would probably fly over some heads. Forget I said anything.)