What to do when the soulful and deeply conscious hip hop with which you made your name has been gradually all but eclipsed by a chart-busting R&B/pop/ hip hop hybrid? If, like Common, you’ve just turned 35, then it seems you transform yourself into a renaissance man. Lately, Common has been acting far more than rhymesaying: he’s recently been seen in ‘Smokin’ Aces’; he stars in Ridley Scott’s ‘American Gangster’; has just wrapped ‘Wanted’ (with Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman) and is about to start filming with Forrest Whitaker and Keanu Reeves. Plus, he’s about to have his third children’s book published and has launched his own hat line.
Happily, Common is still making LPs. ‘Finding Forever’ is his seventh and not totally dissimilar to his previous effort, 2005’s ‘Be’. The Daisy Age swing – albeit punched-up for tuffer times – is present, as are the soulful melodic hooks, the old-skool boom bap, the punchy, politico-personal rhymes and the guest list (here, Lily Allen joins D’Angelo, Bilal and chief producer Kanye West). Choice cuts are the sample-based, dustily retro ‘The Game’ and the divinely bleak ‘Misunderstood’, which leans on Nina Simone’s version of the same. ‘Finding Forever’ may not be the future of hip hop, but it’s quality, recognisable Common. Somehow, that’s enough.
