Over the past year, remixing an established artists work has become a staple for the up and coming producer. 9th Wonder broke ground when he went from virtual nobody to, as Jay-Z  stated, the next big thing from his retooling of Nas’ God’s Son with his own God’s Stepson. Since then the craze has reached a deafening roar. Just as The Black Album has received treatment from many aspiring producers (creating basically a rainbow coalition of Jay’s album, Grey, Brown, etc.) Soul Supreme, who initially made an impact with his own Nas remix Soulmatic, has opted to go the opposite direction by reworking a collection of Common’s work. Soul & Sense features an anthology of the Artist Formally Known As Sense’s portfolio from his Resurrection days up to the work of  the current Electric Circus with a touch of Soul Supreme’s essence.

     What makes a Soul Supreme work differ from many is that he doesn’t go out to simply remix a track. Instead he attempts to recreate the whole song’s atmosphere which can change the dynamic of a song entirely. When he is at his best, he glows, as seen on his work on “Doonit”. Now the track has been injected with Soul Supreme’s personal groove theory and culminates to head bobbing results. The formally mellow “The Light” now has dope swagger about it as
Soul Supreme lays Common’s ode to females amongst funky ass drums and can almost be envisioned at your local juke joint. The Neptunes laced lead single “Come Close” now embodies a jazzy air to it, making it smooth and easy to digest.  When Soul Supreme attempts
to tackle the classic “I Used To Love H.E.R.” the results are equally as pleasant. Combining Common’s nasal delivery with some production that is more current, complete with an ill arrangement, it creates a life of it own. He doesn’t improve or even disrespect the original, he just adds his own flavor to the mix leaving many a hip hop head grinning ear to ear with the results.  The menacing strings and sample laid to the Sadat X assisted “1-9-9-9″ works so well
that it may not even be recognizable at first but after a few listens one can manage to appreciate what Soul Supreme has done.

     The album does hit a few snags, which are minimal to say the most.  Miss Erykah Badu’s vocals on “Love of My Life” sound a bit out of tone with Soul Supreme’s jazz tinged pianos and horns. The production behind the joint “The Sixth Sense” is just okay in comparison to the rest of the album, but these minor flaws cannot take away from Soul Supreme’s accomplishments on this album.

    What makes this such a dope release is that Soul Supreme strings his songs together in such a coherent fashion  that most albums today lack. Much less binding a plethora of material from different stages of Common’s growth with production that makes not a single song sound its age. So as the Soul Supreme train continues building steam one has to wonder how long will it be before this up and coming producer becomes the next big thing. Only time can tell but
until then we will have to hope that the kid stays in the picture long enough to lace us with another solid piece of work.