Be



The corner, where struggle and greed fight
We write songs about wrong cuz its hard to see right
Look to the sky, hoping it will bleed light
Reality's a b!tch, and I heard that she bites

Best album of the year so far. No joke.

Listening to a single new song that you like is always nice, but for myself, it's rare to find an album where listening to every single track is special and makes up a whole new experience. Be, the new album by Common is one of those albums. I'm sure some people who hate Kanye West will dislike this album (he handled most of the production), but there's something to be said for having a record where one person is doing all the beats - it lends a more solid and unified artistic expression.

Remember the old days of hip-hop when there was just one producer? Eric B. & Rakim, Primo & Gangstarr, etc. The best analogy I can make is that the best novels are usually written by a single author who has a specific vision, rather than a book with each chapter written by several authors with wildly different visions.

The typical "formula" for a lot of hip-hop albums these days seems to be to shell out tons of $$$ to fill an album with singles produced by the heavyweights - you gotta get your Dr. Dre track, your Neptunes track, your Timbaland track, your Just Blaze track, your Swizz Beats track, blah blah blah. Sometimes it works, but a lot of times, it just creates albums that contain a couple of hot singles buried under loads of crap.

(And the RIAA would like you very much to pay oodles of money for an album filled with loads of crap.)

Thankfully, this latest by Common is nothing but sheer brilliance. Rhymes about reality, poverty, urban dysfunction, God, spirituality... this is why I love hip-hop. If you don't believe me, you can check out "The Corner" (f. Last Poets) right here. (right click + save as).

I've be playing just the album for the past few days in my car on my iPod and I'm still not tired of it...
posted by G at 4:07 PM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33