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  Release Date: May 25, 2005
  Website: Common Website
  Label: Geffen Records

Common “Be” Album Review
I really didn’t even plan to pick up Common’s new album, “Be.” Don’t get me wrong, Com Sense is my man. One of few the MCs who have consistently created music that has reinforced my love of hip-hop … easily one of my top five lyricists ever. Each of his five previous albums are classic to me, as they have documented Com’s life and growth as a human being through ever-changing themes, sounds and ultimate directions. But the new album wasn’t that intriguing to me at first.

When Common dropped his fifth album, “Electric Circus,” he received perhaps the biggest compilation of underserved backlash in the history of quality hip-hop. A large group of critics, composed mainly of the so-called “guardians of the authenticity of hip-hop” mixed with a small segment of the ignorant MTV masses who thought it was only his second album, claimed that Common sold out on “Electric Circus.” Insanely hardcore hip-hop fans diss anything that doesn’t sound like a previous classic album. They have no appreciation for change or experimentation, because they themselves are incapable of change, experimentation, and ultimately, the growth that they can provide. That Common tried to follow his creative flow and personal growth to make an album about love and spirituality was incomprehensible to both the MTV generation, which only seems to be able to comprehend hip-hop based on money, sex or drugs these days, or the hip-hop heads, who only seem to be able to comprehend hip-hop based on hating artists who stray from some nonexistent collection of rules and guidelines. So the masses criticized Common, even going as far as questioning his credibility, sexuality and masculinity.

Following this initial backlash, Common quickly vowed to return with an album that took the listener back to his roots, the rugged urban introspective hip-hop that made him a legend . with Kanye West, the year’s hottest producer, both underground and popular, producing all but one track. And that upset me. I’ve always felt that Com was on a spiritual path with his rhyming; going in whatever direction his soul took him. And it wasn’t that Kanye and old-school couldn’t possibly be a part of Common’s new direction, but that it appeared to be a result of fan backlash. He shouldn’t have to sacrifice his direction to take a step back and please his fans that obviously don’t understand his genius. And that’s what I initially expected from “Be.”

However, as usual, my preconceived notions only led me to changing perceptions. Although Common did go back toward his reminiscent fan-based style, the album made me think that maybe it was not in response to the previous album’s fan backlash, but actually a part of his spiritual growth and continued emphasis on understanding his own life. I think now that “Be” could have existed without the preceding backlash, and may be the natural progression of Common’s career. In fact, I see “Be” as an album-length metaphor for and explanation of where Common is, and perhaps more importantly, how he got there.

Common initially spends a great deal of time talking about two major topics: Love and The City. I see these both as metaphors. He often compares the two, talking about how love is hard to find in the city.

Yeah, you know what love is
Even found it on the ground where the thugs live
My man had to dig deep to find his
Couldn’t sleep ’cause on the real he had five kids

It’s all love where we come from
In the hood love we was told to run from
That same hood where the guns sung
We holla love, hoping it would come one
Crack got so many lives undone
From lack of love many hide some run

How beautiful love can be
On the streets love is hard to see
It’s a place I got to be
Loving you is loving me

Common talked about love as something that he always looked for despite its virtual nonexistence in his surroundings, something that “we was told to run from.” Common then goes on to tell some stories of ways other people in the city try to find this love. Most appear to get it blindly through materialism or drugs.

Got uncles that smoke it some put blow up they nose
To cope with they lows
The wind is cold and it blows
In they socks and they souls, niggas holding they rolls
Corners leave souls opened and closed, niggas hoping for more
With nowhere to go, niggas rolling in droves
They shoot the wrong way cause they ain’t knowing they goal

It’s steep life coming up where niggas is sheeplike
Rappers & hoopers we strive to be like
G’s with 3 stripes, seeds that need light
Cheese and weaves tight, needs and thieves strike
The corner, where struggle & greed fight
We write songs about wrong cause it’s hard to see right
Look to the sky hoping it will bleed light
Reality’s a bitch and I heard that she bites

I’ll turn the TV down, we can take it higher than that
I wonder if these whack niggas realize they whack
And they the reason that my people say they tired of rap
Inspired by black Muslims and Christians
Pushin’ cutlasses, dope, and other traditions
In the conditions of the city

A black figure…in the middle of chaos and gunfire
So many raps about rims, surprised niggas ain’t become tires
On the street you turn cold and then go screech
I tell ‘em “fuck ‘em” like I do to police
The beast is running rampant
I’m in between sheets trying’ to have sex that’s tantric
For the ghetto, tryin’ to make a get-up stand-up anthem
You spit hot garbage son of Sanford
What you rappin’ for to get fame or get rich?
I slap a nigga like you, and tell him “Rick James bitch!”

Like juice and gin, in the city we blend
Amongst the hustle, titties and skin, fifties and rims
Y’all know the Sprewells and trucks that’s detailed
Heartless females that wanna ride in em
Felt the southside venom in raw hides and denim
Pimp minds collide wit em, a system that tries victims

Streetlights and deep nights cats trying to eat right
Riding no seat bikes with work to feed hypes
So they can keep sweet Nikes
They head & they feet right
Desires of streetlife, cars and weed types

Common attempts to explain the “conditions of the city,” where “struggle and greed fight,” as “some put blow up they nose to cope with their lows” and others “blend amongst the hustle, titties and skin, fifties and rims.” Perhaps Com’s way of dealing with these conditions in a positive way was “to make a get up, stand up album” and “write songs about wrong cause it’s hard to see right.”

Or perhaps it was his attempts to find this love outside of the streets where “love is hard to see” that influenced him to create the music he was known for. But because “from the lack of love many hide some run,” his people couldn’t always understand his direction:

I rap with the passion of Christ, nigga cross me
Took it out of space and niggas thought they lost me
I’m back like a chiroprac’ with b-boy survival rap
It ain’t ninety-four yo we can’t go back

They say a nigga lost his mind
But in the scheme of things I never lost a rhyme
The thin line between love and hatred
I’m the black pill in the Matrix, the saturated life
They say life is what you make it
So I wait quick on a spaceship so I can take it

They say “Dude think he righteous”
I write just to free minds, from Stoney to Rikers
Amongst the lifeless, in a world crazy as Mike is
On my paper, whether its weed or Isis
They say “life is a game,” so I play hard
Writin for my life cause I’m scared of a day job

Common admits “they say a nigga lost his mind” and that he “took it out of space and niggas thought they lost me.” However, he views this as “the thin line between love and hatred,” which exists because of his attempts to “write just to free minds.” But he asserts that he is still growing and trying to find this love, as “it ain’t ninety-four, yo we can’t go back.”

Common then speaks of this metaphorically, as he often does, in the guise of love and the relationships between men and women:

It’s hard when your lady don’t believe what you say
And what you did in the past you gotta live with today
She asked if they could spend the night together
He thought, and said, “I’m tryin’ to get my life together”
Went home to his lady, these were his confessions
“Baby you a blessin’ and my best friend”

I think the “lady (who) don’t believe what you say” is a symbol for his fan base who no longer trusted him as a pioneer of hip-hop following his last album. The lady who “asked if they could spend the night together” is a symbol for the direction he went with this album, the enticing search for love or understanding. But Common “went home to his lady,” and created “Be,” an album that went back to his roots and showed his true love for hip-hop as “a blessing, and my best friend.”

Common has seemingly come to the conclusion that he no longer needs to search, or perhaps that his search has led him back to the real answer. In any case, he seems content with the present. I don’t think he regrets his ventures into music, for they have helped him realize that he should live for the moment.

The chosen one from the land of the frozen sun
When drunk nights get remembered more than sober ones
Walk like warriors, we were never told to run
Explored the world to return to where my soul begun
Never looking back or too far in front of me
The present is a gift and I just wanna BE

I think that Common is attempting to explain how his experiences have changed him. After he “explored the world,” he has realized that “what you did in the past you gotta live with today,” and thus returned “to where my soul begun.”

Still, I sense some regret in Com’s lyrics. He seems to still have this urge to find this love and further his experimentation.

My college career got downed with a couple of beers
Came back home, now I gotta pay back loans
Same nigga, same block, same shit they own
Only thing different, quicker, they click that chrome
In my defense, yo I had to hit that zone
Man to man, I’m good working with my hands
My generation never understood working for the man
And, of being broke I ain’t a fan
Now I stand in the same spot, as my old man
My life I planned not to be on this corner
I still wanna see California

Com defends himself from the haters, admitting that when “only thing different, quicker, they click that chrome,” but that “in my defense, yo, I had to hit that zone.” Yet despite coming back, Common “still wanna see California.”

I no longer believe that Common created this album just to please his complaining fans. Although he did answer a lot of those complaints, the album appears to be more a metaphor of this experience and what he learned from it. Common’s two main topics in this album appear to be love and the city, and he consistently reiterates his belief that love is hard to find in the city. Perhaps love is a metaphor for his attempts to grow spiritually in his music, and the city is a metaphor for the hip-hop fan base, which is deterring these attempts to find it by hating on Common for not being real or true anymore. Maybe Common has so much love for the city regardless of these conditions that he made “Be” to appease the city, to make it see that he is still loyal to its values and culture. But all the way, he defends his past decisions and directions, while still showing that he wants to continue to grow and learn despite the city’s negative perception of his attempts to do so.

So what is Common trying to tell us? Maybe that hip-hop needs to wake up? Maybe that it needs to appreciate innovation and diversity instead of embracing and limiting itself to the standards of the past? Or maybe that hip-hop’s attempts to define itself through materialism, drugs or crime is in reality much more detrimental to its existence than his attempts to define hip-hop through love and life. Whatever the lesson, Common does prove one point, that the metaphorical city of hip-hop needs to learn to accept love, for without it, it is headed in the wrong direction.