He’s atypical, exceptional, and a rare find. His music is that of raw, uncut, straight hip-hop. In other words, the man has talent and that’s why he’s been around for so long. The Southside Chicago born jazz/rap combo artist jump started his career by winning the Source Magazine’s Unsigned Hype contest back in 1992 and shortly after released his first LP, Can I Borrow A Dollar?.

His new and forthcoming album was given a classic rating by XXL magazine (5 mics), but the artist alone can be seen as a classic figure amongst the Hip-Hop community. He’s best known for enriching the plains of hip-hop with his ear-popping political and social awareness messages. His first hard-hitting single, The Corner, off the new album has been in heavy rotation and paint vivid pictures of the rough, rugged, and raw life in the ghetto from introspect.

If you don’t know who I’m talking about then you either don’t know Hip-Hop, are too young to know the roots of Hip-Hop, or you’ve just been living under a rock. In either case you better ask somebody. It’s none other than Lonnie Rashied Lynn better known as Common (formerly Common Sense).

BE is the newest album born from the ingenious thoughts of poet/rapper Common and the impeccable production of none other than Kanye West (9 tracks) and Jay Dilla (2 tracks).

For those not familiar with the work of Jay Dilla (if you’re a true Hip-Hop head I’m sure you are) he produced the Life of Me and was instrumental in producing the last two A Tribe Called Quest albums. Those two brothers gave Common the soul needed, the raw Hip-Hop wanted.

I focused on a mission of creating an album where it was me and people got to know me. I wanted to create something special and classic that was just me...

Create something special and classic he did according to XXL. BE was created as an equilibrium between the past perception of Common and the reality of the artist. BE sets the record straight that just because Common is a self-conscious rapper does not mean he’s “preachy” and doesn’t like to have fun. That statement couldn’t be further from the truth.

Fortunately for the masses of true Hip-Hoppers and backpackers, BE is slated to be released May 24th on Kanye’s label G.O.O.D (Getting Out Our Dreams) Music. G.O.O.D Music features other noteworthy artists such as, John Legend, TLC, Consequence, and the group Sa’ra. The next single to be released off the album BE is said to be Go, another example of Common’s undaunted intellectual play on words. Continued on page 2 »