…. and “Romantic Comedy” is not the not the name of a rap supergroup. The two will star in Just Wright, an actual romantic comedy, where Common takes his first lead role as an NBA player, while Latifah stars as a physical therapist that has “had it up to here” with the dating scene. Then [cont.]

“I ain’t got no lyrics, I’m straight blunt… I don’t have time for lyrics,” said Waka Flocka Flame in an interview on Shade 45 last week. “The nigga that everybody say lyrical, he ain’t got no show…. I be on the radio and niggas be like ‘nigga let’s freestyle right now’ and I be like [cont.]

This event was set up by Diesel, as a part of their Only The Brave Block Party concert series (not to be confused with that thing Dave Chappelle did). Common performed live at Place Stalingrad Paris, complete with live band backing him, giving a rich, full sound to his usually studio produced tracks. The performance [cont.]

Common, dear sweet Common.  What are we going to do with you?  You give us two near classics with Be and Finding Forever and then you handed us something completely different with Universal Mind Control. Could this be another Electric Circus?   In a nutshell, no it’s not, but it’s no Ressurrection either.  So how does Universal [cont.]

   Is Common the most consistent artist in the game? The Artist Formerly Known As Sense has long proven his worth, constantly changing with the game, finding new ways to reinvent himself, but more or less always coming correct. With a career now spanning seven LP’s, it’s arguable as to which of his albums is [cont.]

By William Ketchum III For years, Common has been the ying to commercial hip-hop’s yang—and aside from attaining gold status with his new album, Be, he still is.  Rather than enlist a “who’s who” pile of A-List producers, he was content with the duo Kanye West and J. Dilla.  While most of today’s hip-hop albums [cont.]

     “They say the crocheted pants and the sweater was wack, they seen ‘The Corner’ and said that ni**a is back.” Have truer words been spoken? While each One Day It Will All Make Sense, Like Water For Chocolate, and even Electric Circus were championed by this critic during the nine-year existence of this website, [cont.]

     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 [cont.]

    The fifth album from The Artist Formerly Known As Sense will probably end up being the most widely criticized release of his career, although it may also prove to be his most defining moment as well. With each release Common has given to us, we have seen him change. He has evolved from a squeaky-voiced [cont.]

Approaching his fourth album, “Like Water For Chocolate”, Common talks about the industry, his new LP, and hints at mysterious guests that he’s working with. We’ve heard rumors of everyone from Ice Cube to Will Smith, but as much as we tried, we couldn’t get it out of Common, and we don’t really believe those [cont.]

 It seems with each release, the brother known as Common takes another step higher, while the majority of today’s rappers are stuck in a horizontal shift or a downward spiral. As Common says on “Doonit”, they’re either “droppin’ back to back LP’s that sound the same”, or simply molding to the styles of whatever is considered [cont.]