Mos Def and the Battle of Algiers
Still from 'Battle of Algiers' (1966).
As usual I have had Mos Def ‘s “The Ecstatic,” on repeat, especially the song “The Auditorium,” featuring Slick Rick. I knew immediately where I heard the beat driving the song: Madlib’s “Beat Kondukta in India: Vol 3 &4.” But what is that sample of Arabic during Slick Rick’s verse? Later while watching the classic film, “Battle of Algiers,” again (for umpteenth time), it hit me: It’s a piece of dialogue from Battle of Algiers. At the start of the film, the lead character Ali la Pointe, the Algerian liberation fighter but still a petty criminal at this point, is doing a card trick on a group of unsuspecting bystanders while repeating the same phrase in Arabic. There it was.
