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.
MOS DEF THE ECSTATIC SPEECH CODE
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. The Ecstatic charted at number nine on the Billboard 200 in its first week of release and eventually sold 168,000 copies. For the album's front cover, a still from Charles Burnett's 1978 film Killer of Sheep was reproduced in red tint. 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.
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'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 a number of Islamic references throughout the album. 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.ĭescribed by music journalists as a conscious and alternative hip hop record, The Ecstatic features an eccentric, internationalist quality. Flash, Oh No, and Madlib, with the latter two reusing instrumentals they had produced on Stones Throw Records. He worked with producers such as Preservation, Mr. 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. The Ecstatic is the fourth album by American rapper Mos Def, released on June 9, 2009, by the independent record label Downtown Records.
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