Common - Finding Forever

Genre hip hop Publisher Geffen Records External Links Official Common Website Geffen Records

No matter what you think about hip-hop or rap - you can be a hater or a fanatic, you have to agree 2007 has not been the greatest for the genre. Despite the recent chart success of Jay-Z's fantastic American Gangster and Kanye West's solid Graduation, CD sales for hip-hop have fallen off greatly this year - even more so than other music genres. Besides commercial disappointments, many hip-hop recordings released in 2007 have failed to resonate with critics either.

One of the exceptions to the critical indifference, however, was Common's Finding Forever which dropped back in late July. Upon its release, many cited the Chicago rapper's latest to be as good as 2005's Be which was nominated for numerous Grammy awards. Some even mentioned that Finding Forever would finally make Common a superstar in the hip-hop world because it was more accessible than its predecessor.

Finding Forever is extremely good at times but it has a few too many slow jams that drag down the recording which is a bit of a surprise because Kanye West produced much of the album.

Finding Forever starts off in a very promising fashion as the interesting "Start the Show" features good backing vocals by Bilal and a strong strings section while the next cut, "The People," is a hard-driving number with a some excellent electric bass. The next song, "Drivin' Me Wild," could have been the commercial hit off the album as British singer Lily Allen delivers a fine backing vocal but Common has never been one with massive singles success.

The CD then begins to lose some of its momentum as the romantic "I Want You" and surprisingly lackluster "Southside" fail to bring the goods. The latter track features West guest rapping but the song's beats and chorus are not particularly inspiring. Everything is back to normal though once the next track starts to play. "The Game" is all high-quality as it is a throwback to 90's hip-hop with some very welcome scratching by DJ Premier. As for the rest of Finding Forever, it is more hit-and-miss stuff with "Misunderstood" and "So Far To Go" among the standouts and "Break My Heart" and the title track the lesser numbers.

Truth be told, most of Common's charm has always been his great lyrics and he has some fine moments on his seventh release. "Misunderstood" features some of his best rhymes as he tells the story of a man forced to sell drugs and a woman who strips for a living. (The brilliant Nina Simone sample adds extra depth to the lyrics.) All is not serious though as "Start The Show" is a diss track that is actually rather clever with Common rapping "With twelve monkeys on stage it's hard to see who's the gorilla/You was better as a drug dealer."

That said, Common does fall victim to using various pop-culture references that seem dated already. Among the subjects he name checks are the movie Finding Nemo, Lance Bass, and Bobby Brown. In the end though, Finding Forever is a welcome addition to Common's fine catalogue. It is not his best but it still has enough highs for it to be considered one of the better hip-hop releases of the year.