So Lets Start The Show....

It was the summer of 2000. I had been back in L.A for a year, just completing my first year of Junior High. It was also the year that I fell in love with Hip-Hop. I had just started writing rhymes that June. A month later, while in the car with my sister, auntie, and father, while on our way to the beach, this song came on 100.3 The Beat (The station is now a R&B station called V 100 now). I'll never forget it. It had these crisp drums, a baseline that sounded like it was dancing through the speakers, and this old guy singing in back with a hook I remembered on the first listen... "There are times, when you'll need some one/I will be buy your side/there is a light that shines/special for you and me." I was like, who was this? It was unlike any song I had ever heard. It sounded like the old school records my parents would play in the backyard on Sundays, but with neck snaping drums and an ill rap. I found out later the song was called "The Light" by an MC by the name of Common. This was my introduction to the MC formerly know as Common Sense from the The City Of Wind.

Like Jay-Z for many (and including myself), Jay-Z has supplied summer anthems after summmer anthems that are attached to many fond memories. Common has done the same for me. Starting with The Light, then Come Close, then when I FINALLY bought Like Water For Chocolate years later, Thelonious, Cold Blooded, and Nag Champa, then the summer of 2005 came. I was counting down the days to BE. The second day it was out, I went to The Wherehouse around the corner from my house and copped it (along with a used copy of Tribe's "Low End Theory." This started my love affair with the trio from Queens). From the opening keys of the intro, the album had me hooked. Go! and Love Is... was my "cruisin' in the whip" jams. Chi-City and Faithful had two of my favorite lines of the year (In the midis of chaos and gun fire/so many raps about rims, suprised niggas ain't became tires AND "I'm bad, but not is bad as Eric Bonet") and They Say was one of my favorite calabos of the year. The whole album was crazy. It is an album that reminds me of high school, and a reminder to me that great Hip-Hop could make it in the mainstream.

Cut to 2 years later. Com is blowing up all over the place (movies, T.V Ads, etc), has arguably the best producer in the game today in his corner (Kanye West), and on the day of the release, I find myself walking to the same Wherehouse (now FYE) where two years before, I bought BE, to pick up my reserved copy of Finding Forever. The results, Com has not only delivered another summertime soundtrack for me personally, but has delived an album that is a breathe of fresh air in Hip-Hop. I know people throw around the "C Word" a lot these days... but fuck it, I'm going to say it, in bold print.... FINDING FOREVER IS A HIP-HOP CLASSIC. I had to say it here. I know I couldn't have said it on Okayplayer because them niggas in The Lesson trip when you use that word, and a lot them don't like the album. If you ask me, their Jansports are showing to clearly. The sequencing, the mood of the beats, the concepts, Com's lyrics, the mixing of the songs is clear. Every track bumps and runs clean like a new engine in the whip. This album is perfect in everyway.

As Com said on "Chi City," "It's not '94 joe, we can't turn back." He is not going to make Resurrection II, so get over it! Artistic growth is just like growing within yourself. You have your bright spots and you have your missteps. But once you experience something, you learn from it and move on, only to make yourself better for the next day. This is what Com has done with this album. This album comes after 15 years in the game and 6 albums before it. From "Unsigned Hype" to "Southside," from "Heidi Ho," to "Start The Show," Com's skills have not decreased, he has only gotten better with time. I remember watching a MTV special on the best MCs in the game around 2002, and remember hearing one of the dudes saying Common is going to be one of those arists that will be appreciated when he is gone. Man, I'm glad this is not going to be the case. People are finally starting to wake up to Com. When it's all set and done, Com is going to be top ten. No question. Any objections? Just check this album.

On a sidenote, Kanye is a fool for these beats. I am so blown away by his production on this album, it only increases my anticipation of what he will put out of his hat for "Graduation." Will I. Am came hard once again (and stop hating on Will too) with I Want You (AKA The Song About Erykah), and Dilla's presents is still felt on this album. The retooling of So Far To Go & his interlude beat before Southside not only has my head in shotgun repel mode, makes me think what could have been if he was still here.

I have no idea how I'm going to get to the other albums I bought today, and this is some classic jawns I copped today. All under $7.99 (it was a good day for record shopping):

1. Pete Rock And CL Smooth- The Mecca and The Soul Brother
2. The Pharcyde- Bizarre Ride II: The Pharcyde
3. Parliament Funkadelic- One Nation Under A Groove

On top that, I also bought the new Dilated Peoples DVD, "The Release Party," and I'm still breaking in De La Soul's "Buhloone Mindstate," which I bought yesterday afternoon. But they all going to have to wait. As I am typing this, I am on my third straight spin of the album (with me now repeating tracks), and it's not going to leave my CD player anytime soon. I have been holding out for months, not listening to leaks, only the singles, and the first time I heard some the album's tracks was two weeks when Common did this secret show for Yahoo I was at (that show is going to be online tommorrow. I'll post the link when it's up.) All in all, it was worth the wait and when I look back on the summer of 2007, Finding Forever will be the score to those memories.

"I be dissin magazines, but then buy The Source."
- Com Sense "Cold Blooded"



And on that note, I'm out.