Mos Def (Yasiin Bey) – The Ecstatic (Deluxe Edition) (2009) (FLAC) [24-Bit/48 kHz]

For three decades, the man once known as Dante Smith and then famously as Mos Def, and who has now gone by yasiin bey for the last 15 years, has needed no introduction as an MC.

From Black Star, his breakthrough duo with Talib Kweli, to his lauded solo debut, Black on Both Sides, to six years hosting HBO's Def Poetry Jam and inspired freestyles like "Beef" ("Beef is not what Jay said to Nas/ Beef is when the working n**** can't find jobs"), bey's lyrical gifts have shined on the periphery of the mainstream rap industry while the man moonlighted as an actor for stage, films, and sitcoms. But quite some time before AutoTune changed hip-hop's relationship with melody, bey was imbuing the genre with all kinds of musicality, both understated (the singing on one of his biggest hits, "Umi Says," flirts with free-associative jazz) and raucous (not to be confused with onetime label Rawkus; he injected Bad Brains-style hardcore into "Rock N Roll" and hired their guitarist Dr. Know to thrash all over his underrated 2004 album The New Danger as part of the rock supergroup Black Jack Johnson).

bey's fourth album The Ecstatic now returns to streaming after amore than a decade-long absence and the 2009 album is nothing short of a classic for its fluent, dizzying musicality. Tying together productions from the Neptunes ("Twilite Speedball"), the late, great J Dilla ("History"), and especially champion deep-crate digger Madlib, the man hopped, skipped, and flowed over a richly exoticized mixtape of round-the-world sounds. Not only does he sing over catchy vibraphones on "Pistola" and in Spanish on the beautiful "No Hay Nada Mas" but some of bey's best moments include him throwing down over psychedelic Indian obscurities—from the Nuggets guitar of "Supermagic" to the jaw-dropping, inside-out violin and sitar of "The Embassy." His awestruck descriptions of a hotel on the latter suit the listener's own wide-eyed wonder at taking in all this cosmopolitanism.

The Ecstatic's verses are expert as always, but constantly morphing to fit the richest beats of his career. They often defy description from track to track, like the percussive clap-along "Quiet Dog Bite Hard"—which stomps like one of André 3000's latter-day OutKast cuts—directly into the cinematic bombast of single "Life in Marvelous Times." The clavinet bump of "Casa Bey" turns out to be a horn-and-cowbell funk celebration. Despite reaching the Billboard Top 10 and garnering bey's biggest acclaim in years, it's tempting to call the album underrated because it was such an embarrassment of riches and styles that it never got fully unpacked like it deserved by keepers of the hip-hop flame. Better late than never to remedy its place in the canon, because few rap albums have ever sounded better, and even the two new bonus tracks add pep to its step. The high-energy "Size" punctuates bey's enthused delivery with horn stabs, while "The Tournament" employs another basement beat with haunted-house organ fit for DJ Shadow and advises "never mind the house, run your own odds." More power to him for betting on black on both sides.

Tracklist
1. Supermagic
2. Twilite Speedball
3. Auditorium (feat. Slick Rick)
4. Wahid
5. Priority
6. Quiet Dog Bite Hard
7. Life In Marvelous Times
8. The Embassy
9. No Hay Nada Mas
10. Pistola
11. Pretty Dancer
12. Workers Comp
13. Revelations
14. Roses (feat. Georgia Anne Muldrow)
15. History (feat. Talib Kweli)
16. Casa Bey
17. Size (Bonus Track)
18. The Tournament (Bonus Track)