Common “Like Water for Chocolate” (2000)
I seem to remember Common becoming kind of a big deal in the 00s, so I
was quite surprised now to find out that this was his fourth album and
that he’d actually been active since the late 80s and recording
throughout the 90s (with the first two albums released under the name
Common Sense).
“Like Water for Chocolate” was Common’s first major label release and
his first with production team the Soulquarians, a loose collective of
musical collaborators including Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, Mos Def and
members of the Roots.
As might be expected from that combination of musicians, the music is
inflected with soul, funk and jazz with a through-line to 70s funk over
which Common lays his rhymes. He shows a healthy humility too in
collaborating with various other MCs and vocalists throughout instead of
trying to make it all about himself.
I did enjoy some of the grooves here, but not always being the biggest
lyric person, and with a runtime of nearly 80 minutes, my attention was
seriously starting to lag by the end of it all.
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