Common

A top-shelf lyricist with ten years in the game, Common's style continues to evolve on each new release. Electric Circus finds him experimenting with unusual production, and teaming up with the likes of Mary J. Blige, Jill Scott, and Erykah Badu. Mellow, intelligent hip-hop for mature music afficianados.

Common recorded much of his fifth album at Electric Lady, the downtown Manhattan studio
Jimi Hendrix built, and you can hear Hendrix's psychedelic spirit seep under the boho
rapper's skin. Electric Circus is a wild, vibrant trip billowing with purple-haze guitars,
ethereal choruses and warped scratching. Common's familiar nasal rasp and thoughtful
rhymes are in place, but producers James Poyser, Jay Dee, the Roots' ?uestlove... More >

Sometimes brave men march off into the swamp and get seriously lost, so let's hope Captain ?uestlove and his s?uad remembered the DEET. Vocal flow's not the problem, and set to the beat-smart fusion lite of Like Water for Chocolate, the humanity of the well-meaning poetry would probably outweigh all the forced similes and sentimental lapses. Outfitted in this music, however, Common's pretensions stand up and do jumping jacks. There are pleasurable rhythm elements, and under the circumstances, the Stereolab cameo is kind of an up. But those are parts. The whole is keybs like golden nacho goo, guitar sticking out like chips, please-not-more codas, and everywhere the angelic twaddle of singing swingles doo-doo. (Grade - B)