Common is back a year and half after he made his last CD “Finding Forever”, which I thought was a good but suffered a little bit from Kanye West’s heavy production hand. It had mix of mid 90’s Common sprinkled with some party Common and a side consciousness. His new CD “Universal Mind Control” let’s you know right out the gate that Common is ready to get his b-boy/club banger swag on. With the booming base of the famous Africa Bambabata sample followed by the chorus “this is that new shit”, I immediately wanted to start popping and locking. This song took me back to the “Planet Rock” days and one summer cookout in particular in which my grandmother had me go get her a beer inside neighbor’s house. It was night time and there were about 100 African masks hanging on the wall inside, waiting to scare the shit out of me while “Planet Rock” is blasting through the speakers. I ran through the house like Usain Bolt at the Bejing Olympics. Anyway, it’s also clear that Common is not campaigning for writer of the year with lyrics like “My uh is in you body, my uh is in you mind/check my dictionary, that ass is so defined” on Punch Drunk Love featuring Kanye. Thankfully Kanyeezy spares us the pain of listening to him sing with the autotune machine. I’ll give a run down of the other songs I like on the CD: “Make My Day” featuring the always underrated Cee-Lo, “Sex for Suga” the title speaks for itself , “Announcement” featuring Pharrel was a 2 or 3 listen song before I liked it and “Gladiator” old school CommSense crushing you in your f**king head!
The CD drags a little towards the second half of the CD, “Changes” got quick skip, “What a World” and “Everywhere” sound like a new wave/pop mix but I figured there would be a couple of throwaways. I guess it comes down to whether you like Neptune’s production and whether you like Common a little lighter on the consciousness. For me the answer is yes and sort of. I’ve always enjoyed The Neptunes and they’ve toned it down a bunch since the NORE “What What” days. And I believe Common has a lot more B-boy in him than Mr. Crochet pants, so I don’t think he’s selling out at all. He’s just showing another side of his personality just
like anyone of us would do.
No comments:
Post a Comment