But then Auditorium shoots back out East again, a Bollywood-tinged production from Madlib that sees Mos sharing the mic with Slick Rick on a track that weaves a tale of post-occupation conflict in Iraq. Next, Twilite Speedball pulls it back to grey cityscapes, all tight angles in dark alleys, boxed in by horns with Mos reeling off narcotics like a dealer looming from the shadows: ''Bad news and good dope… powder, potions, pills, smoke''. Supermagic erupts on a hacked-up sample of psychedelic Turkish songstress Selda Bagcan, tight rhymes spat over wailing guitar lines. ![]() The opening run of tracks certainly sounds like an MC out to cover a lot of ground. Three years later, though, and The Ecstatic catches the former Black Star MC back on top of his game, lining up beats from Madlib, Oh No and J Dilla and tackling them with a new confidence, scope and narrative thrust. It's been three years since Mos Def's last album, True Magic, and that wasn't anything to crow about – a tossed-off botch of a record that screamed of contract-filler, suggesting Brooklyn rapper Dante Terrell Smith was enjoying his new life as Hollywood character actor so much that time spent back on the mic felt like time wasted.
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