Aussie hip-hop fans are in for a treat this January, with the announcement of the first ever solo tour by Brooklyn hip-hop legend Mos Def. The 36-year-old Grammy award-winning rapper (real name Dante Terrell Smith) is making his way down under early in the new year on his The Ecstatic Tour, a trek named after his chart-topping 2009 LP, The Ecstatic.
With the release of his fourth longplayer last year, the “Casa Bey” MC landed a slew of critical acclaim. The US edition of Rolling Stone magazine placed the LP at number 17 of their best albums of the year, while Spin magazine described it as “his finest full-length since Black on Both Sides”.
Mos Def has visited Australian shores once before – as a special guest of Californian producer DJ Shadow. Also a talented actor (with roles in movies such as Brown Sugar, Monster’s Ball, The Italian Job and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), Mos Def first came to prominence back in the mid ‘90s, when he joined the group Urban Thermo Dynamics (UTD) with his younger brother, DCQ, and his younger sister, Ces. Two years later Def guested on projects with hip-hop legends De La Soul and Da Bush Babees, before eventually teaming up with Talib Kweli for the seminal 1998 Black Star project.
Right now, with four longplayers under his belt so far, Mos Def is working on his fifth LP, and has recently signed a new label contract with Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music imprint. He’s also been helping out his good buddy West on his own upcoming release, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, due out late November.
Tickets for Mos Def’s The Ecstatic Tour are on sale Thursday 28 October.
Dates are:
Saturday 8 January – Soundscape Festival, Hobart, TAS
Sunday 9 January – The Enmore Theatre, Sydney, NSW
Thursday 13 January – The Tivoli Theatre, Brisbane, QLD
Friday 14 January – The Palace Theatre, Melbourne, VIC
