Whenever someone brings up the topic of who is the greatest emcee of all time, someone brings the motherfucking ruckus. The debate can never truly ever be resolved, but there appear to be some recurring players. Nas, Biggie, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Ice Cube, Eminem, KRS-One and Tupac are all common choices for the G.O.A.T.. Whenever these debates come up, I always await one name that I rarely hear: Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., or Common. The greatest emcee the Midwest has ever seen (suck it Marshal) rarely gets justice, but why?
Sure, his last two albums have been between average and god-awful, but if can look past his recent mis-steps of inconsistent guest verses, his hypocritical Finding Forever, which was a near carbon-copy of Be (“Specially when you as bitch as Missy Back to back LP's that sound the same” (Doonit, Like Water For Chocolate)) and his terrible experiment into Euro-trash, Universal Mind Control, Common stands as one of the most changing, consistent and mature emcees to ever walk the earth.
Want a rundown of Common’s career? One of the best Dj Premier produced Songs ever, one of the best album intros ever, dope, dope, dope storytelling tracks, debatably the greatest ode to black women ever, ill, ill, ill brag tracks, the most amazing tribute to the black family and THE GREATEST HIP HOP SONG EVER (umadbro? Tell me what the greatest song is then). Not enough? He also has the most consistent album history ever.
Let me rate every album in his catalogue out of 5. Can I Borrow a Dollar (3.5) Resurrection (5) One Day it’ll all Make Sense (4.5), Like Water for Chocolate (5), Electric Circus (4), Be (5), Finding Forever (3.5), Universal Mind Control (2). That’s an average of more than 4/5 an album. That’s incredible. With the exception of Be to Finding Forever, no two albums are the same sonically. Up through Be Common matured on every album. From his Phife-like bounciness on his debut up to a dissection of God as a woman on Be, the Chicago emcee never stayed in one place.
Common stood strong in his moral agenda throughout his career. Never a misogynist, gangsta or club-rat, Common tried to add something of sustenance to the hip hop community, and he stressed that (I’ve never heard an emcee come up with so many different rhymes for ‘hip hop’ in my life). Though it never felt like he put himself on a soapbox or on a pedestal, he just felt like an extremely intelligent guy trying to sway you to be the same. He comes off as a college professor who retired to lead the black panthers, not as a Chuck D-type angry young rebel. No one has more maturely spit topics than Common.
Technically, Common has the chops. A versatile flow that is rarely the same from track to track and when he wants too he can pull lyrical miracles. Full of a charming charisma that can carry even terrible tracks to be somewhat bearable and live, don’t even get me started.
Is Common the G.O.A.T.? I wouldn’t say so, though I would put him in the Top 5. I just wish his name would come up more in these discussions. He’s been around since 1992, making repeatedly great music in the underground and the semi-mainstream and gets no credit. Maybe if he got a couple more pats on the back he’d step his game back up, furthering his legacy, and that could never be a bad thing.
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