Max Tannone - "Mos Dub"

Max Tannone serves up exactly what I needed to get me swallowing down (rather than choking on) the sounds of Mos Def once again. Yessirree, Mr. Tannone did a phenomenal job on this mash-up album "Mos Dub", which, if you couldn't guess by the title, mixes some Mos Def tracks with some legit dub reggae.

This album makes me think that Mos Def should've been making hip-hop-dub-reggae from the beginning. Yes, it's THAT well done. You get the lyricism that you want from Mos with the delivery that you know so well coupled with a rhythm that'll make even the most uncoordinated and untalented dancers ever want to dance. What's not to like? This is one of those albums that you can play the whole way through... I didn't want to skip a single track.

It gets better - the album is available for FREE download online! Visit http://mosdub.com/ and you can stream the entire album to see if you like it. Then, if you do enjoy, download it without having to pay anything more than the potential diagnosis of carpal tunnel that you'll get from clicking a computer button a few too many times than you may have without ever having known of "Mos Dub". Not much of a loss.

Seriously though, big props to Max Tannone on this one. I'm very much looking forward to listening to his other mixes (Radiohead and Jay-Z? Of course I'm interested). Will keep you guys posted if I find more treasure.

My vote: 4.5 stars (only because I seem to have an issue with giving a perfect 5-star review)
My favorite tracks: "Ms. Vampire Booty" & "In My Math" & "Mr. Universe"

Mos Def - "The Ecstatic"

Frankly, this album irked me a bit. I'm all for alternative hip-hop, but I feel like Mos Def took it a little too far on this one. To be able to pull of 80s beats, sampled beats from Indian music, and songs in Spanish all in the same album is a bit far-fetched. Even so, it's not exactly the instrumentals that bother me on this album.

I actually enjoy all of the beats on this album...definitely some awesome producers on these tracks (i.e. Madlib and J. Dilla). I just don't really appreciate how they're mixed yet, and how Mos Def handles each one. His flow is very unique, and many of these beats don't compliment it. It even sounds like he's off-beat in some instances. That's not always a bad thing, but it did strike me in the wrong way this time.

If you listen to the tracks that I've chosen as my favorites, you'll see that they're not far off from old school Mos Def. Probably an indicator of my overall sentiment.

I'll give my honest opinion: Mos Def's music has been subpar (for my standards at least) since he left Rawkus. I mean, if you've ever seen Brown Sugar, you'll know what I'm talking about...Rawkus keeps it real... true hip-hop without any of the extra fuss tacked on. I'm not trying to hate on experimenting with different sounds, but I'm not feelin' the new sounds that he's got going on this album. Really though, I think Mos has been off a bit since his album "The New Danger". This album is a pretty significant improvement from that one.

As a parting note, I will say that I think this is the type of album that will grow on you after listening many times through. I've only listened to it a couple of times, but I think there is some promise for future days. I understand what Mos was trying to do here. He's been out of the game for a while and NEEDED to come back with a strong release after crashing and burning on "The New Danger". He wanted to bring a fresh, but familiar, sound. Anyway, I'll come back and update my opinion as necessary after listening to "The Ecstatic" some more.

My vote: 2.5 stars
My favorite tracks: "History" ft. Talib Kweli - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdqG6EfOe6g & "Auditorium" ft. Slick Rick - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT-hYXqTN38 & "Priority" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkUs13bIBao