The Ecstatic
Encyclopedia
The Ecstatic is the fourth studio album
by American hip hop
artist Mos Def
, released June 9, 2009 on Downtown Records
. The album was recorded during 2007 to 2009, and production was handled by J Dilla
, Mr. Flash
, Madlib
, Mos Def, Oh No
, Preservation, and The Neptunes
. The Ecstatic features samples
of several diverse musical styles, including soul
, Afrobeat
, jazz
, funk
, and Latin music, and has been noted by music writers for its "out-of-the-crates" samples.
The album debuted at number nine on the U.S. Billboard 200
chart, selling 39,000 copies in its first week. It serves as Mos Def's second highest charting album to date. Upon its release, The Ecstatic received general acclaim from most music critics, and it earned Mos Def a Grammy Award
nomination for Best Rap Album
. Rolling Stone
magazine named it the seventeenth best album of 2009.
at the 92nd Street Y, Mos Def stated that he named the album after the book The Ecstatic by Victor LaValle. The album features collaborations with Slick Rick
, Talib Kweli
and Georgia Anne Muldrow
, as well as production by Mr. Flash
and the late J Dilla. The album cover is taken from Charles Burnett
's 1977 film, Killer of Sheep
. It samples
several diverse musical styles, including soul
, Afrobeat
, eurodance
, jazz
, funk
, and Latin music, and has been noted by music writers for its "out-of-the-crates" samples.
and Oh No
(Madlib’s younger brother). The album's first single, "Life in Marvelous Times", was released November 4, 2008. Its second single, "Quiet Dog", was produced by Preservation and released January 13, 2009. Released May 2009, the third single "Casa Bey" was promoted through a music video that was released via Mos Def's Myspace
page. On June 18, 2009, Mos Def stated that he will start selling the album by T-shirt
s sometime in July 2009 with a code on the tag, which will be used to download off the Internet for free. So far, Mos Def has released music videos for the songs "Casa Bey," "Supermagic" and "History" with Talib Kweli
.
chart, selling 39,000 copies in its first week. It also entered at number two in mp3-format album sales on Amazon.com
. In its second week on the Billboard 200, the album fell to number 29 on the chart with 16,000 copies sold. In its third week, the album sold 9,200 copies, slipping to number 45 on the Billboard chart. The album slipped off of the Billboard 200 after the week of July 5, 2009, in which it sold an additional 6,600 copies at #69. The album spent 11 weeks on the Billboard 200, and has sold more than 71,000 copies.
s. At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
score of 81, based on 27 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Chicago Tribune
writer Greg Kot
praised Mos Def's "renewed commitment" and commented that the album "marks a return to form for a wayward hip-hop giant. Ben Thompson of The Observer
gave the album four out of five stars and wrote that it "is undoubtedly a crate-digger's wet dream. But far more importantly, it also offers a thrillingly accessible demonstration of hip-hop's limitless creative possibilities" to listeners with a limited experience with hip hop music. Ed Potton of The Times
called it a "kaleidoscopic album" and cited the track "Life in Marvelous Times" as its centerpiece. Slant Magazine
's Eric Henderson complimented Mos Def's lyrical consciousness and stated "the entire album careens wildly, free from the constraints of chorus and verse, like the best from Stones Throw's back catalogue". J. Gabriel Boylan of Spin
praised Mos Def's lyricism, citing it as his finest full-length since Black on Both Sides
". NME
s Pete Cashmore gave the album a rating of seven out of 10, commenting that most of its music is "simply good, honest hardcore hip-hop given a twist by MD’s slurred, inebriated delivery and use of odd imagery".
Allmusic's Andy Kellman complimented the album's "dusty off-centeredness", calling it "a mind-bending, low-key triumph, the kind of magnetic album that takes around a dozen spins to completely unpack". Allison Stewart of The Washington Post
called The Ecstatic "most cohesive, most album like thing he's ever done" and described its music as "a riotous mix of incendiary hip-hop, gentle R&B and out-of-the-crates soul, with ersatz flamenco thrown in for good measure". Andrew Martin of PopMatters
commented that "Each track flows into the next perfectly and makes it feel like an album and not just a collection of songs", writing that it "feels like the album Mos has always wanted and intended to make. It’s experimental and progressive without being too left-field and isolating". Steve Jones of USA Today
gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars and commented that its "varied, muscular rhythms [...] underpin Mos Def's insightful musings on love, politics, religion and social conditions". In his consumer guide for MSN Music
, critic Robert Christgau
gave The Ecstatic an A rating and praised its "half associative rhymes that clock in under two-and-a-half minutes, devoid of hooks but full of sounds you want to hear again". Christgau described it as "a dream mixtape -- one unresolved track morphing into the next to define a world hip-hop with poles in Brooklyn and Beirut", and elaborated on the album's thematic content as a whole, stating:
Rolling Stone
magazine named it the seventeenth best album of 2009. Rhapsody (online music service)
called it the 4th best album of 2009. Spin ranked the album number seven on its list of the year's best albums. In 2009, The Ecstatic was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
, and its single "Casa Bey" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance
, both set at the 52nd Grammy Awards
.
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by American hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
artist Mos Def
Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
, released June 9, 2009 on Downtown Records
Downtown Records
Downtown Records is a record label owned and operated by Downtown Music LLC. Music on the Downtown label is distributed by Universal Music's Fontana Distribution and, for certain releases, as a joint venture with Atlantic Records and also for select releases, by Alternative Distribution Alliance...
. The album was recorded during 2007 to 2009, and production was handled by J Dilla
J Dilla
James Dewitt Yancey , better known by the stage names J Dilla and Jay Dee, was an American record producer who emerged from the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan...
, Mr. Flash
Mr. Flash
Gilles Bousquet, better known by the stage name Mr. Flash is a French DJ and musician signed to Ed Banger Records.Bousquet started producing tracks since 1999 under the name Flash Gordon. His first release, 'Le Voyage Fantastique' was released on his own label, Lust Island in 2001...
, Madlib
Madlib
Otis Jackson Jr. in Oxnard, California, known professionally as Madlib, is a Los Angeles-based DJ, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, and music producer...
, Mos Def, Oh No
Oh No (rapper)
Oh No is an underground hip hop artist from Oxnard, California who has released several albums on Stones Throw Records.-Biography:...
, Preservation, and The Neptunes
The Neptunes
The Neptunes are a record production duo consisting of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, who are credited with contributing the sound for many successful hip hop, R&B and pop artists in the late-1990s and 2000s...
. The Ecstatic features samples
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
of several diverse musical styles, including soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, Afrobeat
Afrobeat
Afrobeat is a combination of traditional Yoruba music, jazz, highlife, funk and chanted vocals, fused with percussion and vocal styles, popularised in Africa in the 1970s. Its main creator was the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who gave it its name, who used it to...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, and Latin music, and has been noted by music writers for its "out-of-the-crates" samples.
The album debuted at number nine on the U.S. Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart, selling 39,000 copies in its first week. It serves as Mos Def's second highest charting album to date. Upon its release, The Ecstatic received general acclaim from most music critics, and it earned Mos Def a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
nomination for Best Rap Album
Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums with rapping at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
. Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine named it the seventeenth best album of 2009.
Background
In a podcast interview with Anthony DeCurtisAnthony DeCurtis
Anthony DeCurtis is an American author and music critic, who has written for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Relix and other publications.-Career:...
at the 92nd Street Y, Mos Def stated that he named the album after the book The Ecstatic by Victor LaValle. The album features collaborations with Slick Rick
Slick Rick
Richard Walters , better known by his stage name Slick Rick is a Grammy-nominated English-American rapper...
, Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli Greene , better known as Talib Kweli, is an American hip-hop artist and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His first name in Arabic means "student" or "seeker" ; his in Swahili means "true"...
and Georgia Anne Muldrow
Georgia Anne Muldrow
Georgia Anne Muldrow is an American singer and musician signed to Stones Throw Records. She is the first female artist signed to the label and seems to be a close friend of fellow label artist Dudley Perkins...
, as well as production by Mr. Flash
Mr. Flash
Gilles Bousquet, better known by the stage name Mr. Flash is a French DJ and musician signed to Ed Banger Records.Bousquet started producing tracks since 1999 under the name Flash Gordon. His first release, 'Le Voyage Fantastique' was released on his own label, Lust Island in 2001...
and the late J Dilla. The album cover is taken from Charles Burnett
Charles Burnett (director)
Charles Burnett is an African-American film director, film producer, writer, editor, actor, photographer, and cinematographer...
's 1977 film, Killer of Sheep
Killer of Sheep
Killer of Sheep is a 1977 American film written, directed, produced and shot by Charles Burnett. It features Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, and Charles Bracy, among others. The drama depicts the culture of urban African-Americans in Los Angeles' Watts district...
. It samples
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
several diverse musical styles, including soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, Afrobeat
Afrobeat
Afrobeat is a combination of traditional Yoruba music, jazz, highlife, funk and chanted vocals, fused with percussion and vocal styles, popularised in Africa in the 1970s. Its main creator was the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who gave it its name, who used it to...
, eurodance
Eurodance
Eurodance is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s or early 1990s primarily in Europe. It combines many elements from House, Techno, Hi-NRG and especially Italo-Disco...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, and Latin music, and has been noted by music writers for its "out-of-the-crates" samples.
Release and promotion
In live shows, Mos Def performed new songs from the album before its release. Crowds had heard tracks produced by MadlibMadlib
Otis Jackson Jr. in Oxnard, California, known professionally as Madlib, is a Los Angeles-based DJ, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, and music producer...
and Oh No
Oh No (rapper)
Oh No is an underground hip hop artist from Oxnard, California who has released several albums on Stones Throw Records.-Biography:...
(Madlib’s younger brother). The album's first single, "Life in Marvelous Times", was released November 4, 2008. Its second single, "Quiet Dog", was produced by Preservation and released January 13, 2009. Released May 2009, the third single "Casa Bey" was promoted through a music video that was released via Mos Def's Myspace
Myspace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
page. On June 18, 2009, Mos Def stated that he will start selling the album by T-shirt
T-shirt
A T-shirt is a style of shirt. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line....
s sometime in July 2009 with a code on the tag, which will be used to download off the Internet for free. So far, Mos Def has released music videos for the songs "Casa Bey," "Supermagic" and "History" with Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli Greene , better known as Talib Kweli, is an American hip-hop artist and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His first name in Arabic means "student" or "seeker" ; his in Swahili means "true"...
.
Commercial performance
The Ecstatic debuted at number nine on the U.S. Billboard 200Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart, selling 39,000 copies in its first week. It also entered at number two in mp3-format album sales on Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
. In its second week on the Billboard 200, the album fell to number 29 on the chart with 16,000 copies sold. In its third week, the album sold 9,200 copies, slipping to number 45 on the Billboard chart. The album slipped off of the Billboard 200 after the week of July 5, 2009, in which it sold an additional 6,600 copies at #69. The album spent 11 weeks on the Billboard 200, and has sold more than 71,000 copies.
Critical response
The Ecstatic received general acclaim from music criticMusic criticism
See also Music journalism for reporting on classical and popular music in the media.The Oxford Companion to Music defines music criticism as 'the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres'. In this...
s. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 81, based on 27 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
writer Greg Kot
Greg Kot
Greg Kot is an American writer and journalist. Since 1990, Kot has been the music critic at the Chicago Tribune, where he has covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and business issues...
praised Mos Def's "renewed commitment" and commented that the album "marks a return to form for a wayward hip-hop giant. Ben Thompson of The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
gave the album four out of five stars and wrote that it "is undoubtedly a crate-digger's wet dream. But far more importantly, it also offers a thrillingly accessible demonstration of hip-hop's limitless creative possibilities" to listeners with a limited experience with hip hop music. Ed Potton of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
called it a "kaleidoscopic album" and cited the track "Life in Marvelous Times" as its centerpiece. Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
's Eric Henderson complimented Mos Def's lyrical consciousness and stated "the entire album careens wildly, free from the constraints of chorus and verse, like the best from Stones Throw's back catalogue". J. Gabriel Boylan of Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
praised Mos Def's lyricism, citing it as his finest full-length since Black on Both Sides
Black on Both Sides
Black on Both Sides is the debut solo album of American rapper Mos Def, released October 12, 1999 on Rawkus Records. Prior to the album's recording, Mos Def had collaborated with rapper Talib Kweli for the duo's studio album, Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star , which raised high expectations for...
". NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
s Pete Cashmore gave the album a rating of seven out of 10, commenting that most of its music is "simply good, honest hardcore hip-hop given a twist by MD’s slurred, inebriated delivery and use of odd imagery".
Allmusic's Andy Kellman complimented the album's "dusty off-centeredness", calling it "a mind-bending, low-key triumph, the kind of magnetic album that takes around a dozen spins to completely unpack". Allison Stewart of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
called The Ecstatic "most cohesive, most album like thing he's ever done" and described its music as "a riotous mix of incendiary hip-hop, gentle R&B and out-of-the-crates soul, with ersatz flamenco thrown in for good measure". Andrew Martin of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
commented that "Each track flows into the next perfectly and makes it feel like an album and not just a collection of songs", writing that it "feels like the album Mos has always wanted and intended to make. It’s experimental and progressive without being too left-field and isolating". Steve Jones of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars and commented that its "varied, muscular rhythms [...] underpin Mos Def's insightful musings on love, politics, religion and social conditions". In his consumer guide for MSN Music
MSN Music
MSN Music was a part of the MSN web services. It delivered music news, music videos, spotlights on new music, artist information, and live performances of artists. In 2004, Microsoft created an MSN Music download store to compete with Apple's iTunes Music Store, though its sales in comparison were...
, critic Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave The Ecstatic an A rating and praised its "half associative rhymes that clock in under two-and-a-half minutes, devoid of hooks but full of sounds you want to hear again". Christgau described it as "a dream mixtape -- one unresolved track morphing into the next to define a world hip-hop with poles in Brooklyn and Beirut", and elaborated on the album's thematic content as a whole, stating:
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine named it the seventeenth best album of 2009. Rhapsody (online music service)
Rhapsody (online music service)
Rhapsody is an online music store subscription service, launched in December 2001, and available in the United States only. On April 6, 2010, Rhapsody officially declared its independence from RealNetworks. Downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, Rhapsody's version...
called it the 4th best album of 2009. Spin ranked the album number seven on its list of the year's best albums. In 2009, The Ecstatic was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums with rapping at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
, and its single "Casa Bey" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance
Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance was awarded from 1991 to 2011, alongside the Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Previously a single award was presented for Best Rap Performance....
, both set at the 52nd Grammy Awards
52nd Grammy Awards
The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards took place on January 31, 2010, at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Neil Young was honored as the 2010 MusiCares Person of the Year on January 29, two days prior to the Grammy telecast. Only ten of the 109 awards were received during the broadcast...
.
Track listing
Personnel
| # | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Supermagic" | Songwriters: D. Smith, M. Jackson Sample: "İnce İnce Bir Kar Yağar" by Selda Bagcan Selda Bağcan Selda Bağcan is a Turkish singer and guitarist. She was born in 1948. The Turkish military rulers persecuted her in the 1980s due to her political songs.-External links:* – official website* discography at Discogs... Sample: "Heavy" by Oh No Intro: Malcolm X Malcolm X Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its... at Oxford University in 1964 |
| 2 | "Twilite Speedball" | Songwriters: D. Smith, C. Hugo |
| 3 | "Auditorium" | Songwriters: D. Smith, O. Jackson Jr., R. Walters Sample: Utilizes "Get it Right" by Madlib Madlib Otis Jackson Jr. in Oxnard, California, known professionally as Madlib, is a Los Angeles-based DJ, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, and music producer... Sample: Utilizes "Movie Finale" by Madlib Madlib Otis Jackson Jr. in Oxnard, California, known professionally as Madlib, is a Los Angeles-based DJ, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, and music producer... Dialogue taken from the film The Battle of Algiers |
| 4 | "Wahid" | Songwriters: D. Smith, O. Jackson Jr. Sample: Utilizes "The Rip Off (Scene 3)" by Madlib Madlib Otis Jackson Jr. in Oxnard, California, known professionally as Madlib, is a Los Angeles-based DJ, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, and music producer... |
| 5 | "Priority" | Songwriters: D. Smith, J. Daval, B. Hebb, S. Brown Sample: "Flower" by Bobby Hebb Bobby Hebb Bobby Hebb was an American singer and songwriter, best known for his writing and recording of "Sunny".-Biography:... |
| 6 | "Quiet Dog Bite Hard" | Songwriters: D. Smith, J. Daval Dialogue from the documentary Music Is a Weapon, dialogue excerpts spoken by Fela Kuti Fela Kuti Fela Anikulapo Kuti , or simply Fela , was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.-Biography:... |
| 7 | "Life in Marvelous Times" | Songwriters: D. Smith, G. Bousquet |
| 8 | "The Embassy" | Songwriters: D. Smith, G. Bousquet, Ihsan al Munzer Sample: "The Joy of Lina" by Ihsan al Munze |
| 9 | "No Hay Nada Mas" | Songwriters: D. Smith, J. Daval |
| 10 | "Pistola" | Songwriters: D. Smith, M. Jackson, A. Hester Sample: "In the Rain" by Anthony Hester Additional Lyrics: "Cowboys To Girls" by The Intruders The Intruders The Intruders were an American soul music group most popular in the 1960s and 1970s. As one of the first groups to have hit songs under the direction of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, they had a major influence on the development of Philadelphia soul.... (1968) |
| 11 | "Pretty Dancer" | Songwriters: D. Smith, O. Jackson Jr. |
| 12 | "Workers Comp." | Songwriters: D. Smith, G. Bousquet, M. Gaye Sample: "If This World Were Mine" by Marvin Gaye Marvin Gaye Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range.... |
| 13 | "Revelations" | Songwriters: D. Smith, O. Jackson Jr., M. Drake Sample: "Colours" by Michael Drake Sample: "Savage Beast" by Madlib |
| 14 | "Roses" | Songwriters: D. Smith, G. Anne Muldrow |
| 15 | "History" | Songwriters: D. Smith, J. Yancey, T.K. Greene, Zekkariyas, M. Wells Womack Sample: "Two Lovers History" by Mary Wells Mary Wells Mary Esther Wells was an American singer who helped to define the emerging sound of Motown in the early 1960s... |
| 16 | "Casa Bey" | Songwriters: D. Smith, E. Lobo Sample: "Casa Forte" by Banda Black Rio Banda Black Rio Banda Black Rio is a Brazilian musical group from Rio de Janeiro that was formed in 1976. It has a repertoire based on funk but also including samba, jazz and Brazilian rhythms.-History:... |
Charts
| Charts (2009) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
9 |
| US Billboard Top Independent Albums Independent Albums The Billboard Independent Albums is a chart of the highest-selling independent music albums and extended plays in the United States, compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is used to list artists who are not signed to major labels... |
2 |
| US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999... |
5 |
| US Billboard Top Rap Albums Top Rap Albums Top Rap Albums is a record chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks Rap and hip-hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The chart began publication for the week of November 13, 2004.... |
2 |
External links
- The Ecstatic at DiscogsDiscogsDiscogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...
- The Ecstatic at MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
- Album Review at About.comAbout.comAbout.com is an online source for original information and advice. It is written in English, and is aimed primarily at North Americans. It is owned by The New York Times Company....
- Album Review at Time Out