On this day 21 years ago, Common released Be, his warm opus largely headed by a white-hot Kanye West. The Chicago rappers paired up for eight of the ten songs, with J Dilla dropping in for the two standouts “Love Is…” and “It’s Your World (Part 1 & 2)”.
It came on the heels of an ambitious but commercially underwhelming Electric Circus in 2002 that some critics trashed. “So, is this genius or is this madness? As enjoyable as it is on occasion, I’m inclined to side with the latter. Marvin Gaye tried it. Richard Ashcroft tried it. One of them did a fantastic job, the other did not. Common sits somewhere between the two. Odd. Very, very odd,” Nick Southall wrote for Stylus Magazine at the time.
Be saw the Chicago MC essentially go back to basics. The album leans on classic soul samples Kanye could flip on a moment’s notice. That’s where a lot of the critics really marveled at the album, believing that the pair were musical soulmates in a sense. “West is the producer Common has been waiting for all of his career: He makes Common both catchier and edgier at the same time,” Nathan Brackett of Rolling Stone wrote at the time.
Common Releases His Opus ‘Be’ on This Day in 2005
XXL gave Be its highest possible ranking at the time, stating that it was a truly spotless record. “While label support and the times heavily influence whether great music can be crowned a classic, if nothing else, Common has created a flawless album. By giving us himself completely and speaking to and for us as complete people, he’s birthed the total package. Common has raised the bar,” the publication wrote at the time.
Moreover, today, Be is heralded as a true hip-hop classic. On Rolling Stone’s list of the 200 greatest rap albums of all time, Common’s opus was slotted at 145. “Then there’s Common, who rhymes in a relaxed, deftly lyrical voice and offers nuggets of wisdom, whether it’s observing the desperation of young Black hustlers in Chicago on ‘The Corner’ or happily unfurling a mic-trading routine alongside West in ‘The Food,’” they wrote in 2022. “As an old jazz head might say, Common is fully ‘in the pocket’ here.”
As far as awards prestige is concerned, it received four nominations from the Grammys, all within the hip-hop-specific categories. However, he didn’t end up taking home any awards that evening.
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