Common Sense “Resurrection” (LP Version)

Common Sense “Resurrection ’95″

Common Sense “Resurrection” (Extra P remix)

Common Sense “Resurrection” (Large Pro remix)

For the LP version of “Resurrection,” the title track of Common’s sophomore album, producer No I.D. samples the piano from Ahmad Jamal Trio’s “Dolphin Dance” and places the loop on top of a forceful break. Neither the melody nor the rapping are trampled by the drums; each element sounds equally assertive and vibrant. I can imagine a drunk and raucous Common barging into the studio and quickly sobering once he hears the instrumental track, shifting his focus to reeling in the rhymes and puns cascading through his mind. The high-pitched nonsensical antics of his debut effort no longer suffice, as he is newly inspired to treat his vocation as both craft and art.

This is the mythology that Common offers to the listeners, that his “speech and thoughts” are quicker and more nimble now that he’s grown up a bit and halted his daily consumption of malt liquor. He is just coming down from his high, so he must “stagger,” possessed by the forward movement of the beat. Rhyme patterns begin to assemble themselves into patter, as if they were interdependent organisms moving in knowing response to the rhythm. By gradually lifting himself out of his alcoholic fog, Common reconnects with the wondrous physicality of words, both the sounds they make when spoken and the images and moods they evoke. (more…)