| The Ecstatic | ||||
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| Released | June 9, 2009 | |||
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| Length | 45:34 | |||
| Label | Downtown | |||
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The Ecstatic is the fourth studio album by American rapper Mos Def, released on June 9, 2009, by the independent record label Downtown Records. After venturing further away from hip hop with an acting career and two poorly received albums, Mos Def signed a recording contract with Downtown and recorded The Ecstatic primarily at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. He worked with producers such as Preservation, Mr. Flash, Oh No, and Madlib, with the latter two reusing instrumentals they had produced on Stones Throw Records. The work of Stones Throw rapper MF Doom was also cited by Mos Def as an influence, while singer Georgia Anne Muldrow, formerly of the record label, performed as one of the album's few guest vocalists, along with rappers Slick Rick and Talib Kweli.
Described by music journalists as a conscious and alternative hip hop record, The Ecstatic features an eccentric, internationalist quality. Mos Def's raps about global politics, love, war, spirituality, and social conditions are informed by the zeitgeist of the late 2000s, Black internationalism, and Pan-Islamic ideas, incorporating many Islamic references throughout the album. Its loosely structured, lightly reverbed songs use unconventional time signatures and samples taken from a variety of international musical styles, including Afrobeat, soul, Eurodance, jazz, reggae, Latin, and Middle Eastern music. Mos Def titled the album after one of his favorite novels, Victor LaValle's The Ecstatic (2002), believing its titular phrase evoked his singular musical vision. For the album's front cover, a still from Charles Burnett's 1978 film Killer of Sheep was reproduced in a red tint.
The Ecstatic charted at number nine on the Billboard 200 in its first week of release and eventually sold 168,000 copies. Its sales benefited from its presence on Internet blogs and the release of a T-shirt illustrating the record's packaging alongside a label printed with a code redeemable for a free download of the album. To further support the album, Mos Def embarked on an international tour with concerts in North America, Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom between August 2009 and April 2010. As his DJ on the tour, Preservation began to develop remixes of the album's songs, which he later released on the remix album The REcstatic in 2013.
A widespread critical success, The Ecstatic was viewed as a return to form for Mos Def and one of the best albums from 2009, with reviewers applauding its exuberant musical feel, adventurous creative range, and shrewd lyrical performances. Some publications ranked it among the greatest albums of the 2000s decade, including The Times at number 30. However, it struggled to reach mainstream audiences beyond Mos Def's fan base and led the already disillusioned rapper further away from the music industry, resulting in less recorded work from him over subsequent years.