Three-Dimensional

03/31/2000 2:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Billy Johnson Jr

Common gets love from the ladies. He's standing on a street corner when an appreciative sister approaches, giving him dap for exalting women in his music. While he's signing her autograph and thanking her for her support, he's interrupted.

"I can't be out here on the streets," a clearly agitated prostitute mutters in the background. "The police is coming. It's raining. Uh-ugh. This ain't cool. I ain't getting enough money for this."

Mistake!

Just as Common explains that he credits his respect for women to his mother and daughter, he turns into Ike Turner. Like Mr. Hyde, he halts his meet-and-greet, chastises his hooker, slaps her, and orders her back to work. Without missing a beat, he puts back on his nice-guy face, turns to his fan, apologizes for the interruption, and picks up where they left off.

There's no visuals for this skit that precedes "A Film Called (Pimp)" from Comm's fourth album, Like Water For Chocolate, but if there were, you can bet there'd be a perplexed expression on the face of the adoring fan.

Common's no pimp in real life. But the misogynistic skit serves to remind folks that the MC who put Chicago on the hip-hop map doesn't want to be viewed as a one-dimensional good-guy rapper (though "A Film Called [Pimp]" presents him as a reformed pimp).

"When I went into this album I said, 'Some people got me lumped up as this Mr. Righteous,'" Common begins, "Y'know, I'm striving to be a good person and striving towards perfection, but there's other sides to me...Just show the different sides to keep balance. If you're doing good things, and you're having spiritual sessions with people, that don't mean you don't go out with and enjoy yourself with your lady, or even with a lady friend, man. Life is balance."

The pimp skit would not have made such a big impression if it appeared on his 1992 debut, Can I Borrow A Dollar. Back then, the 19-year-old Rashid Lynn had just bounced from Florida A&M University, and was spitting Das EFX-style igidity-rigity rhymes about his skills and digging females.

But ever since he shook up the world with his immediate classic "I Used To Love H.E.R." from his sophomore album, Resurrection, people haven't looked at him the same. Despite causing the Minister Louis Farrakhan-intervened rift with Ice Cube (the song implied that West Coast rappers made it a fad to rap about killing), to many, the song documents the evolution of hip-hop up until the mid-'90s better than any other.

Common upped his lyrical consciousness in 1997, when he released the Lauryn Hill collab "Retrospect For Life" as the first single from One Day It'll All Make Sense, his third album. In the gospel-inflected invitation into Comm's personal life, he chronicled his true-to-life contemplation about aborting his baby girl.

"I Used To Love H.E.R." convinced De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest to make Common an honorary member of the then fledging Native Tongue regime. And Common rolls so tightly with the Roots nowadays that they've taken on most of the production for his new album, and he's uprooted to the Big Apple.

Like Water For Chocolate, however, just might reflect Common's true arrival. The soulful record captures some of Common's best assets, with braggadocios and intelligent moments.

16-year-old MC battle contestants are too smart to test Common's DJ Premier-produced "The 6th Sense," "Thelonius" featuring Slum Village, smoky '70s-grooved "Heat," or the fonky old-school-style "Dooinit." On "Dooinit," Comm warns, "This is business strictly/ Step to my business is risky/ Especially when you as bitch as Missy [Elliott]." Since "Dooinit" is released as the B-side to the first single, "The 6th Sense," Common thrusts himself back in the hip-hop arena as a venomous MC, first and foremost.

For now, "Retrospect For Life" fans will need to buy the album to discover Like Water For Chocolate's more serious moments. "Funky For You" is a poetic quest for love. "Geto Heaven" features D'Angelo and makes a plea for world peace. "Pops Rap III (All My Children)" gives Comm's dad yet another chance to shine. And "A Song For Assata" pays homage to Black Panther Assata Shakur, who now lives in Cuba.

"The way this album came together, if I felt a vibe I went with it," Common explains. The majority of the album was produced by an amalgamation of musicians across various genres that hearken back to some of jazz's incubative, collaborative sessions. "See, ?uestlove, James Poysner, Jay Dee, and D'Angelo have this production team called the Soulquarians. They're all Aquarians, and they're all producing soul music. They're all geniuses, really. They did the majority of the album in different combinations...'Cold Blooded' was produced by D'Angelo, ?uestlove, and Keelo, who produces with the Roots. We were just in the studio, and they were playing some funky stuff, some James Brown-soundin' type stuff, and I knew I wanted to go there with it. So we recorded it to tape, and when we were on tour, ?uestlove and Keelo hooked it up on the [Roland] MPC. So we took the live music, sampled it, and then we went back and put Roy Hargrove on trumpet and Black Thought and Rahzel on background vocals, and some soul claps in there, and it just came together." It just came together, like many of the other offerings on the LP.

Take his collab with Femi Kuti, son of the legendary Fela Kuti, for example. "I got up with Femi 'cause I was listening to Fela Kuti a lot," Common explains, "Femi is on MCA Records, and basically he was working on something with the Roots for his album. I had a song called 'Time Traveling.' It was a tribute to Fela. [Femi] dug it. We went to the studio, and he got on at 4:30 in the morning. I was honored to have him on there."

Common's evolution is coincidentally in sync with one of hip-hop's most important movements since Public Enemy, KRS-One, and Ice Cube did what seems nearly impossible today: made socially charged messages commonplace in the clubs and on the streets.

Everything in its time. "Things are changing," says Common, speaking on the transforming landscape of rap music. "It's definitely a good time, with the success of the Roots, Mos Def, Black Star, Pharoahe [Monch], and soon to be myself. And also, I gotta give tribute to the Erykah Badus, and the D'Angelos. No, they are not creating the raw hip-hop, but it's still hip-hop soul music. You can feel it. It's pushin' the envelope, and it's opening people's minds to different music. They goin' against the grain, and 'cause it's comin' from the same womb, the same family, it's all the same and it's really helpin' the situation."

A humble Common cites personal growth between albums as a critical part of his music's mature demeanor. Though some artists with a couple albums to their credit keep personal life and on record personas separate, Common says he can handle the truth.

"Just give me the pure, raw honesty, y'know," closes the Chi native. "I don't have time to be beating around the bush to appease people. Just tell the truth in a respectful way. That's what I try to do. I just can't be lookin' people in their eyes and sayin' something I ain't really feelin' or something that I know is a lie to them."