Common- Finding Forever

Be is one of my favorite albums of the past few years. I've heard a few things from the new one, but none of them have stuck.

<i>My daughter found Nemo/ I found the new Primo...</i>

I've always liked this guy. Well, except for Electric Circus, but no one liked that.

damn, when I get that it's [ ] and not < >

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this album... both "The People" and "The Game" are excellent. There are some questionable lyrics (as always with Common), but the beats are awesome and he seems to be in top shape flow-wise....

I had a friend, upon finding out how much I love Be, try to play me Electric Circus while raving about how much better he was on that record, before he "went commercial". My tongue nearly reached back into my throat and asphyxiated me out of pity. And the worst thing is it was a cute lady friend, so I couldn't even really be mean to her. She did give me a Stones Throw decal that I've never used, though.

I am still on record as loving Electric Circus. And yes, I'm the only one. I have been clowned by many but I don't care.

its another bland common album...

the opening like four lines of "the game" might be my favorite ten seconds in rap this year.

I still listen to Like Water For Chocolate, mostly the first couple tracks.

I have still never heard Electric Circus. I willfully ignore Can I Borrow A Dollar?

I am just now getting into One Day It'll All Make Sense.

The other half of dude's discog is golden. I'm cautiously looking forward to this.

he still wears a very nice hat

really gives him a What's Going On vibe.

I remember the TIME article on him back in December described his head as "elegantly bald."

Ya, I think WGO is what he's going for, unfortunately.

why "unfortunately"

I can't say he's done much musically or lyrically I give a shit about, but I do admire the hat every time I see an ad he's in.

THE QUEENPIN!

why "unfortunately"

-- J0hn D., Wednesday, July 18, 2007 12:32 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

because he is also in gap commercials

CORNY gap commercials. i mean its not as bad as this
http://www.voic.us/files/marvin%20gaye%20hennessey.jpg

but i dont think marvin really had a say

the reasoning still eludes me here: is it "he is evoking an artist who I would think of as being above ads/endorsements"?

no no, i don't mean this as some kind of anti-commercial statement or something. i just mean he's attempting to evoke this Serious Concerned Artist persona and yet he's making tacky ads about keeping it good in the hood (get it? he means "hoodie") and kissing under the mizell with dave chapizzelle. Its not like, morally offensive to me, its just inconsistent and his music these days isn't really making up for it.

i do love resurrection and like water for chocolate, tho
i would even defend parts of electric circus

If I had been driving when I first saw that Hennessey billboard I might have crashed. Should have had a picture of his dad!

Dimension 5ive, you have my support. I like Electric Circus too.

i just mean he's attempting to evoke this Serious Concerned Artist persona

otm.

I say "unfortunately" because often when artists deal with weighty issues their craft suffers. I have no immediate evidence that this has happened or will happen with Com, but it's what makes me "cautiously" anticipate the album.

And no I'm not saying WGO was evidence of "craft suffering" etc

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/398201.jpg

that is really a terrible cover

wwwtf

from the URB (lol) review:

2005’s Be found Common fi nding Kanye West and his inner grown ass man, and both shined brightly as the record balanced the pair’s patented soul and Common’s rediscovered fire. . .but it still wasn’t hard. Finding Forever, Common’s spectacular seventh full-length, isn’t “The Bitch in Yoo,” but it is his hardest release since. That’s not to say he’s replaced the soul with a trunk full of crack, but lead single “The Game” certainly shows off this return to gully.

they should change their name to the urb lol

common is such a putz at rapping and talked some anti gay shit when i saw him one time. fuck this guy.

more like return to ferngully

That’s not to say he’s replaced the soul with a trunk full of crack, but lead single “The Game” certainly shows off this return to gully.

lol @ using "gully" as a noun.
i think i would like prodigy a lot more if his album was called Return of the Gully.

I Used To Like H.I.M.

my daughter found nemo I returned to ferngully

hahaaaa

I predict roughly 14 boring tracks about earth tone scarves, Oparah's book club, and overcoming global climate change.

it has 3 good songs

the rest is snoozeable hip hop boredom as only common can do

I love when dudes show up and make absolute pronouncements.

I don't like Common though. He just can't rap on beat, which annoys my ears.

On most of Resurrection he sticks pretty tightly to it.

I admit I haven't gotten too far with him since I bought 'Like Water for Chocolate' and couldn't take much of it, so yeah could be wrong.

Yeah I actually really hated LWFC for a while, it's only in the last few months that it's really clicked for me. I still can't sit and listen to it all in one sitting, though.

I don't get that as a criticism in general, especially as a criticism of Common, who occasionally strikes me as too beat-bound. I very much prefer rappers who use rhythms in interesting ways.

(xps)

Yeah, I thought Rakim saved us from the old school approach of only hitting strongly on the one and three. Are we so ungrateful?

seconded xpost

Well, the point is that the way he raps is simply quite annoying, but of course we all like MCs who rap in interesting ways. I'm not maniacal about things being exactly on-beat at all, but Common does not rap in a way that flows with the music / beats that are backing him up. Too often he'll have something he wants to fit into a verse so he'll just shove it all into one line, and it's like he forgets that there is actually music going on behind him. A valid criticism that many, many people notice I'm sure.

dude used to be called Common Sense, had to change it. He could have gone with Sense. He chose Common, despite the easy dis, probably because of the hard consonant. Nuff said.

Common does not rap in a way that flows with the music / beats that are backing him up.

Well, I happen to disagree with your basic premise, so there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SbuPOOPnzw

Check out the 2:00 point on this, and you'll see exactly what I mean. Love the music, then he's stumbling all over himself.

Okay, that is a bit weird, but doesn't bug me too much.

dude used to be called Common Sense, had to change it. He could have gone with Sense. He chose Common, despite the easy dis, probably because of the hard consonant. Nuff said.

-- da croupier, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 5:34 PM

wtf are you talking about.

ie why is that nuff said

Love the music, then he's stumbling all over himself.

Ha, see that doesn't bother me. But then I came out of the slam "poetry" scene where that kind of shit was standard.

Because Anthony Is Right...

(xp)

Yep, I think we can agree to disagree. It just annoys the hell out of me and I don't know why, but there it is. My brain is hardwired to dislike Common unfortunately, which is sad because I usually like his message.

You know, I sometimes think Com isn't so great about rapping musically too, but every time I've heard an acapella with him, I've come away impressed. What does that mean? Fuck if I know.

His name is COMMON, Hoos! This is a man who decided that, no longer able to call himself COMMON SENSE, it would be good to be known as COMMON.

It's just not that fly a tag, BIG HOOS aka the steendriver.

His hats make up for the unflyness of his moniker.

I wish someone had suggested C.S. Loose when he was deciding what to do.

commons flow went quite weird after resurrection.... or was it after one day... either way, he started to really irritate me more often than not once he got with questlove and co. didnt like the LWFC album, EC seemed like a case of amazing beats, worst choice of rapper to front them, then be just seemed ultra boring, barring a few songs. the new one seems to be just as boring, but with a few less boring tracks in between all the really boring ones. so not quite as boring, but pretty close.

It's just not that fly a tag, BIG HOOS aka the steendriver.

-- da croupier, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 7:58 PM

a+

IF YOU THINK COMMON STILL CAN'T SPIT LISTEN TO THE SECOND VERSE OF "THE GAME."

BUT WHY MUST HE ONLY SPIT ON LESS THAN 5 TRACKS ON HIS ALBUMS AND MAKE THE REST INTO NYQUIL?

BROKEBACK AIN'T THE WAY OF THE GAME!

I WANNA BE LIKE AKEELAH, AN ACHIEVER!

alright so lemme get this straight: all of common's rap songs aren't always straight rap songs and he sometimes has clunky lines?

Is Common the first rapper to use "Brokeback" as a homophobic dis? At least that's what I assume he's doing.

unless he means "stay in the lane, broke back ain't the way of the game" as in you'll break your back if you drive in the wrong lane.

alright so lemme get this straight: all of common's rap songs aren't always straight rap songs and he sometimes has clunky lines?

Yeah, that's it. You got us and we're total idiots. Plz.

You're right about "The Game", but why so many misses in between (one) hits?

You ARE being a little disingenuous here, Jordan.

I'm a little surprised at the homophobia given Kanye's very public change of heart re: da gays. I thought I'd read/heard somewhere that Ye had helped Com see the light or something.

http://www.voic.us/files/marvin%20gaye%20hennessey.jpg
i still wanna know why marvin is wearing like a dracula cape there.

trying not to blend in der

TS in the offbeat mixed up hit'n'miss rapper: Common vs Talib.

Truth is, both their new albums will be better than Mos Def's True Magic.

Pharoahe's is, despite grasping reviews, also a dud. Class of '98, what happened?

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/9328/jeffersontwilightpl5.jpg

Anyway, Class of 98??!!?

WTF, dude, did you miss the early 90s completel?

...y

i still wanna know why marvin is wearing like a dracula cape there.

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 19 July 2007 01:01 (49 minutes ago) Link

hah uhhhh how familiar are u with 'whats going on' anyway

WTF, dude, did you miss the early 90s completel?

for a second i thought "completel" was some obscure undie comp and i was totally about to start searching for it.

i still wanna know why marvin is wearing like a dracula cape there.

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 19 July 2007 01:01 (49 minutes ago) Link

ie have wanted to know since i first saw the cover

You ARE being a little disingenuous here, Jordan.

re: what?

i understand people's grievances with common, but i think post-Be a lot of them don't hold up. Be was a pretty straightforward non-Bohemian really good modern rap album. it he the best rapper we've got? nah. but he's a deft lyricist (still) and charasmatic (still) and important (still) and easily the best antidote to gangster rap (which i love, btw) around... and based on the three songs i've heard off Finding Forever ("the game", "misunderstood" and "the people") he has the best (announced) rap album of the year lined up.

i'm also not about to wrestle with homophobia in hip-hop, even if it's doubly hypocritcal coming from Socially Concious And Important Common.

my point is just that what people have been knocking com for here don't hold water... definitely w/r/t Finding Forever.

(also... i don't get the problem with that Nemo line.)

x-post. There's a difference between early singles, then Rawkus singles, then something like Black Star came out in '98 (which was most people's introduction to what would become the Okayplayer sound).

What we're now talking about as Common's "sound" started in earnest with "One Day It'll..." which came out in '97, from memory...

And the disappointing thing about Pharoahe is how conventional he's become - compared to Internal Affairs ('99), let alone Organized Konfusion.

w/r/t disingenuousness I was mainly thinking of this:

alright so lemme get this straight: all of common's rap songs aren't always straight rap songs and he sometimes has clunky lines?

-- Jordan Sargent, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 10:57 PM

It seems pretty clear that the criticisms being leveled at him here can't be so pigeonholed. You got tityschneidwhatev saying the music is snoozeworthy [/personal preference], humansuit saying he's hardwired to dislike common [/personal preference], and da croupier saying he doesn't like his name [/personal preference].

Nobody's saying YOU can't/shouldn't like Com, and I think you know it. This is called being disingenuous.

But let's go back to both liking Com and anticipating the album.

Doesn't it come out next week?

2 weeks (july 31).

hoos have you seen his rap city freestyles on onsmash?

i'm also really feeling kanye's production on FF.

Common got some gay-press love for this verse on Electric Circus, after a few gaybashing lines on his earliest albums, so I'm still wondering if I'm misreading the use of "Brokeback."

He spoke with his eyes, tear-filled
A lump in his throat, his fear built
My whole life it was in steel
This ain't the way that men feel
A feeling, he said he wish he could kill
A feeling, not even time could heal
This is how real life's supposed to be?
For it to happen to someone close to me?
So far we'd come, for him to tell me
As he did, insecurity held me
I felt like he failed me
To the spirit, yelled help me
I'd known him for like what seemed forever
About going pro we dreamed together
Never knew it would turn out like this
For so long he tried to fight this
Now there was no way for him to ignore it
His parents found out and hated him for it
How could I judge him? Had to accept him if I truly loved him
No longer he said had he hated himself
Through sexuality he liberated himself
Between me and you
Liberation...
Peace

then again, this track is his return to gully...

Yeah I never heard that song but I was always kinda relieved to hear that he'd apparently repented on some of the homophobia in his previous lyrics, weird that he'd go back to that now. One Day and Resurrection are dope albums, Be probably was too but I didn't really feel motivated to buy it at the time even though in retrospect I liked most of the songs I heard. So I'll probably cop Finding Forever to kinda make up for that even though I haven't been wild about the songs I've heard off that so far ("The People" is growing on me a little, though). It seems like the selling point of him doing albums produced mostly/entirely by Kanye is kinda negated when he keeps dropping just a month or two before Kanye's own albums.

one day is serious esp the joint w/ canibus

id like to hear dude get back on that soul by the pound shit tho

i personally am not feeling "The Game," brokeback or broke back. What parts ain't tired are tinny.

Kinda reminds me of "The Corner" in that the song is never more boring than when Common is on it.

re the homophobe or not a homophobe thing: He did some HIV awareness ads with two men getting sensual a while back, too.

yeah, come on: that huge pro-homosexuality -- or at least anti-anti-homesexuality -- verse quoted above (and the 17,000 interviews he did about it) got a lot of attention and was a hell of a lot more important than ONE WORD dropped randomly into a song. MOVE ALONG NEXT TOPIC PLEEEEEEEEZE.

and if you don't like his flow or his songs why do you keep coming back to the thread to talk about how you dont like his flow or his songs OH YEAH I FORGOT IT IS ILM AND I USED TO DO THIS YEARS AGO NEVER MIND.

you can't handle the truth

I think I like "Doinit" more than any of his songs on resurrection :-O

thats the song from LWFC obv

i can't imagine this new one being that good, dude is like a chris martin/bono/oprah level rap celebrity now and i find it all very grating

oh come on dave he's a MUCH better rapper than oprah

i can't imagine this new one being that good, dude is like a chris martin/bono/oprah level rap celebrity now and i find it all very grating

-- deej, Thursday, July 19, 2007 2:50 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

i know what you're getting at, but there's a difference between what common does in his raps than what chris martin does by painting an equal sign on his hand or what bono or oprah do. that said i could see how he would great, but as i've said before in this thread, it still sounds to me like he can really spit.

He could've covered "Stupid Cupid" (the Connie Francis or Wanda Jackson versions) when he still did the sqeaking/hiccuping thing. That might've been an anti-homophobe thing to do.

Or "squeaking," even.

I like LWFC b/c it's part of that Voodoo/Things Fall Apart era when those dudes were sounding unbeatable, so maybe I don't even like Common himself.

I did go to a show once and it was pretty fun, esp. when he brought up a 12 yr old kid out of the crowd to freestyle with him.

I've seen him a couple times. The second time, he played a surprisingly not-that-bad synthesizer solo. In the rain. And breakdanced too, but that was before it started raining.

When I saw him on tour with the Roots it was one of the best things ever. I think that also might have been the time Goodie Mob was on the bill, too.

As far as I know, Goodie Mob is still unrepentantly homophobic.

fire away:
common ft lily allen http://nahright.com/news/2007/07/18/common-ft-lilly-allen-driving-me-wild/

is dude going fu manchu?

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/4423/fucomchutu9.png

Sounds amazing at the beginning ... Lily Allen sounding great as usual ...

Common starts off fine and then at "She recruit a ballplayer from the Clippers" he begins his stumbling all over the track thing.

Second Common verse, actually extremely good. I agree it's more straightforward, but it's less clumsy than trying to name drop the Clippers etc. in the middle of something that requires some very succinct discipline re: the drums in the background.

Track is short and sweet, definitely like it!

lily does sounds pretty decent.
choice common quotes:
"she was the type to watch oprah and the today show/be on the treadmill, uh, like ok go"
"had a body uh a body that you can't pay fo/ that means she had some d's on her but they wadn't fake though"
"doin all she can for her man and her baby/ driving herself crazy like that astronaut lady"

second verse is about as good as com gets, and that means it's really good.

people are going to think this is annoying as fuck i think.

common was actually making much better music when he was a homphobe.

Would be a decent Kanye album track

Just saw the video for "The People" on MTV2 tonight.

choice Common quotes:

"My daughter found Nemo, I found the new primo
Yeah you know how we do, we do it for the people"
"Went from rocky starter to a voice of a martyr"
"When I see them struggling, I think how I’m touchin them"
"My raps ignite the people like Obama"

Second from last is ... what?

this leaked, btw.

so far, it's pretty good. i'm really enjoying "drivin' me wild". and i usually hate rap songs with cutesy female choruses.

"drivin me wild" sounds like com doing a lily allen song rather than the other way around... which is how things might have to go for lily allen, ahem, "rap" songs to work.

is it lily allen singing on that?
hmm...

bah. i completely missed the link up there.

those lines about nemo and primo and rocky and martyrs arent meant to be good are they?

i don't think so, no.

a hell of a lot more important than ONE WORD dropped randomly into a song

"Brokeback" = homophobic slang with an early-2006 expiration date.

Maybe artistic integrity demanded that he say, in addition to defending the humanity of gays, that he doesn't want them coming anywhere near him.

Whatever, I tuned out after that Gap ad.

*slow clap*

"In the days and days that I spent researching this story, because I’m dedicated like that, I came across some photographic evidence which I believe reveals the true source of Common’s obvious distaste for a good percentage of his own audience. When I pointed out a few years ago that Common’s obviously got some sort of thing against white people, a few people pointed out that Common is pretty light skinted himself and hence is probably the result of some hot miscegenation. Lo and behold, I stumbled upon a picture of Common posing with his mother, and damnit if she’s not whiter than half of the white people I know.

So you see, Common spends so much time these days lashing out at his own white audience because he realizes that he himself is part-white, and he fears he won’t be accepted by black people (was he ever?), unless he constantly goes about letting the world know that a white woman can’t do anything for him other than buy his albums and show up to his concerts. Which, if you think about it, is roughly tantamount to saying he hates his own mother.

Who’s the self-hater now?"

kanye? check.
lupe? check.
rhymefest? check.
why not common?

oh and john legend should be on there for all the kanye and john legen bufu "reports."
how could i forget.

Hoos, where is that quote from? That's crazy.

byron crawford.

Anybody buy this yet?

considering that it won't be in stores until next week, I'm guessing the answer is no.

*misused slow clap*

The album tracks are great audio wallpaper. Dude's sorta maddeningly in the pocket. ECM rap?

kanye? check.
lupe? check.
rhymefest? check.
why not common?

-- Jordan Sargent, Tuesday, July 24, 2007 4:24 AM

What was this in reference to?

Haha the album actually comes out and no ones gives a fuck anymore.

it is wack

kanye? check.
lupe? check.
rhymefest? check.
why not common?

-- Jordan Sargent, Tuesday, July 24, 2007 4:24 AM

What was this in reference to?

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, August 4, 2007 3:27 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Link

byron crawford's internet beefs w/ chicago rappers.

Some nice zings here:

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/common/finding-forever.htm

It's a solid album. Personally, I think it's more solid than "Be", but I know I'll get ripped on for saying that.

Still, "Be" had some slow, meandering shit on it that I skipped every time.

From Paul's link:

his lines are maladroit (it sounds as if he can barely fit a few feet into a line without stumbling into an ungainly break)

Hmmm. I suppose I'm not the only one who's noticed it then! BAN ILM.

It's the number one album in the country this week.

gettin that oprah money

the more i hear about this the more i'm mad that people are so unthinking about praising POSITIVE ARTISTS. this album is so so dull

the best track is the dilla one (again) but that was already on the shining

could never stand this guy

I'll never forgive him for that lame-ass "Compared to What" advertising spot

i purged this from my consciousness after the ok go/"crazy astronaut lady" lines.

I guess I'm gonna get sonned if I say I kinda like what I heard of the new PE.

This almost made me want to re-evaluate EC: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=14437053&blogID=296197155

debuted at #1

Next Common single:

That was the day my album
debuted at number one on the American pop charts
I wanted to see a Clipper game so I drove there in my car
We were like two birds flying down the highway toward social consciousness
Got to Staples but then oh man, oo-ee
Elton Brandt was hurt so instead we watched Ratatouille

I wanted to see a Clipper game so I drove there in my car

So many Common lyrics really are like this.

Yep. ;)

We were like two birds flying down the highway toward social consciousness

^^^ best Common lyric ever

All this complaining about the Gap and Coke ads strike me as really off, but then again I watch tv maybe about once a month.

Is this the thread to comment on the genius that is UGK's "Underground Kingz"? Life is (2009) with Too Short is just the best stripper track in a while...OK, wrong thread.

I listened to Electric Circus on my way home from work today and it still sounds great. Less concerned with lyrics; the instrumental textures on that thing are really really cool. But hey don't let me stop everyone from relentless hatitude -- more "clever" lyrics PLEASE.

About 75% of Finding Forever is a snooze. And the cover is indefensible.

i LOVE this record

eardrum >>>> finding forever

haha really? I mean I'm sure Finding Forever is terrible but not much grabbed me on my first listen of Eardrum. I actually like some of the Madlib tracks, though.

I love that Just Blaze track on Eardrum, but otherwise... :| But I hate Kweli's voice and I think he's an awful rapper, so maybe that's why...

After the travesty that was The Beautiful Stuggle, I can't imagine touching any new Kweli with a ten-foot pole.

Yeah, that album was garbage.

totally awful, agreed. also, that Just Blaze track sounds kinda boring and half-assed to me, even if it does kinda fit nicely into Eardrum's low-key vibe.