When you think of Common, you probably think of his classic 2005 album Be. It’s a warm, cozy love letter to Chicago and to hip-hop as a whole, tasking Kanye West with a bulk of the production. With the help of Ye and J Dilla, it made for one of the best hip-hop albums of all time.
However, what if I told you that such a special album wasn’t just a one-off? Just two years later, the Chicago MC released Finding Forever, an album where Kanye took production duties again. But this time, there was an active choice to pay homage to the late J Dilla, who passed away a year prior. In an interview with MTV at the time, Common said Ye was studying how the Detroit producer would chop a sample and tried to emulate it accordingly.
With the addition of “So Far to Go” with D’Angelo and J Dilla, Finding Forever is similarly structured to Be, where Common tried to strip back all the frills and just rap. Rather than aim for grandiose concepts and challenges, he reminded himself to take it back to the basics.
Common Releases An Underrated Classic on This Day in 2007
“Sometimes you forget to just rap,” he told MTV. “I’ve been doing albums so long, so I look for new challenges. I spit so much on the first albums — and not to say I was the ultimate spitter, but I did it so much that I was looking for new things to do as a writer. I think that’s where that stems from, me not really going hard on the rhymes. ‘Cause I wanted to take on new subject matters and different things so I could grow and keep it interesting for me. But then you do get to the essence of what you are here for. And I love to rhyme. It does come out.”
Common received solid reviews for Finding Forever. Spin applauded his efforts to release something “livelier, grittier and better.” He could seamlessly make cozy radio singles with Lily Allen and a “vicious put-down” on the same album. Similarly, About.com said that J Dilla would’ve been proud of such a loving homage.
However, Pitchfork was less kind to it. Writer Nate Patrin called the album “lead-footed and tired” compared to Be, rating it a 5.6 out of 10. “The problem is, Common already brought this ‘real’ hip hop back two years ago,” Patrin argued. “By presenting a weaker, more frivolous and significantly duller version of it, he’s risking falling into the same routine of formulaic coasting as the white-tee strawmen older heads gripe about. Call it Be Minus, and let me know when he’s found his spark again.
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