The Ecstatic is the fourth album by American rapper Mos Def (pictured), released by Downtown Records on June 9, 2009. Singer Georgia Anne Muldrow and rappers Slick Rick and Talib Kweli were guest vocalists. The album has been described by music journalists as a conscious and alternative hip hop record. Mos Def's raps about global politics, love, spirituality, and social conditions are informed by Black internationalism and pan-Islamic ideas. The album's loosely structured, lightly reverbed songs use unconventional time signatures and samples taken from Afrobeat, soul, Eurodance, jazz, reggae, Latin, and Middle Eastern music. The Ecstatic charted at number nine on the Billboard 200 in its first week of release and eventually sold 168,000 copies. A widespread critical success, The Ecstatic was viewed as a return to form for Mos Def and one of the year's best albums. He performed concerts to support the record in North America, Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ecstatic

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1772:

In an act of defiance against the Navigation Acts, American colonists led by Abraham Whipple attacked and burned the British schooner Gaspee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspee_affair

1944:

World War II: In reprisal for successful French Resistance attacks, German SS and SD troops hanged 99 men in the town of Tulle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulle_massacre

1954:

During hearings investigating conflicting accusations between the United States Army and Senator Joseph McCarthy, Army lawyer Joseph N. Welch asked McCarthy: "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army%E2%80%93McCarthy_hearings

1999:

Yugoslav Wars: The Kumanovo Agreement was signed, bringing an end to the Kosovo War the next day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumanovo_Agreement

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

plankter: (biology) A single organism of plankton. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plankter

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. ...Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew— And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, —Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.   --John Gillespie Magee Jr. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee_Jr.