The Dreamer / the Believer

He's back! Common…and his new album The Dreamer / The Believer. Incredibly, it's been 20 years since Lonnie Rashid Lynn, then known as CommonSense, dropped his debut album, and since then he's consistently turned out albums with a level of depth and creative visions few of his peers could match. And yet since he doesn't generate headlines like Kanye or amass power like Jay-Z, the steadily and consistently dope Chicago emcee is often overlooked in the "greatest rappers of all-time" debate. Consider The Dreamer / The Believer a wake up call then, a reminder of just how good the man is and how much respect he deserves. Greatness is never achieved in a day, or in a year or even a decade, so it really shouldn't be a surprise that Common's finally found the perfect balance between his more avant garde leanings and battle rap roots. In retrospect Common's often maligned Electric Circus album, and to an extent the less memorable Universal Mind Control, was for the best. They taught him how to push boundaries without straying too far. With that in mind he's careful to balance every experimental cut against a more undeniably hip-hop banger like Ghetto Dreams. The addition of fellow legendary lyricist Nas over a bass-booming beat and plenty of big booty references equal the kind of high-caliber cut that can be used as ammunition against anyone even dreaming of calling him soft. And how many rappers could include both Ferrari references and Maya Angelou on the same track (The Dreamer)? This isn't Common's first one producer, one emcee album - Kanye did the vast majority of the excellent Finding Forever - but ironically the Kanye of Finding Forever was far more classic hip-hop influenced. This is as much No I. D.'s album as it is Common's and just like the album's emcee, Dreamer / Believer's producer remarkably manages to display an enormous range, from the piano cinema of The Believer to the party starting Celebrate, while still maintaining a sense of cohesion. Toget