Resurrection - "Common" knocks some "Sense" into Hip Hop (WIAB W/O)

Common Sense has always been regarded in the underground as one of the greatest rappers in history. Unfortunately, the majority has still not been able to understand the genius of this man, so they choose the easier found 2pac, or Notorious B.I.G. as the greatest rappers. I wholeheartedly dissagree. 2pac and Biggie could be two of the best, but Common is also up there with them. Lyrically, Common is above them masterfully. When it comes to creativity and subject matter, he is undoubtedbly one of the most creative musicians to ever grace a microphone. In 1992, he released Can I Borrow a Dollar?, which was a relatively good underground album, and his debut, but his true fan base and legendary status came from another...

In 1994, Common Sense released Resurrection, his second, and most legendary album yet. A purely genius album with Amazing lyrics, creativity, subject matter, and production, packaged together for a tasty treat of tantalising music. In my opinion, Common deserves a Grammy for Resurrection, then again, nowadays, the Grammy's mean pure sh*t. Anyways... lets get to the review...

Track Listing and Rating

1. Resurrection (*****)
2. I Used To Love H.E.R. (******)
3. Watermelon (*****)
4. Book Of Life (*****)
5. In My Own World (Check The Method) f/ No I.D. (******)
6. Another Wasted Nite With... (NOT RATED)
7. Nuthin' To Do (******)
8. Communism (******)
9. WMOE (NOT RATED)
10. Thisisme (*****)
11. Orange Pineapple Juice (*****)
12. Chapter 13 (Rich Man Vs. Poor Man) f/ Ynot (******)
13. Maintaining (****)
14. Sum Sh*t I Wrote (*****)
15. Pop's Rap (NOT RATED)


Common's classic Resurrection LP begins with the title track for the album Resurrection, a great intro to the album. Common freestyles over a simple piano looped beat and drops some ill lyrics, setting up the entire album in his deep, yet soothing and calm voice style lyricism. From the start we know that he is not a genius lyricism with multi-syllables in every verse like a Canibus, Ras Kass, Rakim or Eminem, but he is poetic in his own right, and has his tight moments. Very head-bobbing track.

Moving on from the opening track we get to the genius, purely classic and famous hip hop genius track entitled I Used to Love H.E.R.. Undoubtedbly, Common's most popular underground songs, and without a doubt, one of the greatest songs in hip hop history, maybe even in music history. Besides all of this, its also one of the most borrowed-from and copied songs ever, where many times other artists have attempted to imitate it, but nobody will ever get the fame and true recognition from this classic. 5 Minutes of an artistic masterpiece...

Well enough building it up, ill explain exactly what I Used to Love H.E.R. is about. Common storytells about a female in his life who he used to like, and listening to the song, you get clues that this girl is much more special than it seems. Common storytells an amazing tale of coming up and getting famous, but losing her credibility and selling out. At the end of the song, Common Sense drops the bomb at the end saying that he was speaking about hip hop instead of a female in one huge metaphor. He was vividly explaining the commercialising of hip hop and how it has changed, and how he is commited to the underground. Definetely, an underground fans dream come true. Oh yeah, as for the production, it uses a classic jazzy mending of sounds with a tight drum loop and bassline. Resurrection is worth buying just for this track.

And I'm a man of expandin, so why should I stand in her way
She probably get her money in L.A.
And she did stud, she got big pub but what was foul
She said that the pro-black, was goin out of style
She said, afrocentricity, was of the past
So she got into R&B hip-house bass and jazz
Now black music is black music and it's all good
I wasn't salty, she was with the boys in the hood

Common gets more self-introspective on the aptly titled Book of Life. The chorus is taken from Bob Marleys Get Up Stand Up, as Common Sense spits lyrics about the troubles in his life, and mixes it up with multi-syllable flow, spat over a deeply bassed, old school storyline with a drum and snare loop.

Common is joined by No I.D. on In My Own World. Here, we are given a sample from an old Tribe Called Quest song Keep It Rollin, and No I.D. and Common Sense rap braggadiocio and battle rhymes through out the song, with an awesome beat featuring xylophones, a hard drum / bassline accompaniment, and some very low piano. Common Sense continues his braggadiocio and vicious battle rhymes on Nuttin to do and Orange Pineapple Juice. His incredible lyricism is intact on both these songs, but on the latter, he spits more venomous battle lyricism than the clever braggadiocio on the first.

Moving on we get to another extremely creative track entitled Communism. On this track, Common begins the majority of the major words and punchlines with the letters "COM", giving us an amazing lyrical display, matching the one given by J-Live on his track Mcee. Same idea, but remember, Common did it first. One of these words is "Complicated" which is exactly what this song is. A mix of braggadiocio, pure storytelling, and introspectiveness.

Commiserate at the fort with Jeff I'm so ill
But I chilled in my compartment with no company and no meals
Now Com can get the panty, but I want my own company
And Com is on a mission not to work for commission
It's a common market and it's so much competition
but to me, competition is none
To my comp I'm a ton I get amped like Watts in a riot
my compact disc is a commodity, so buy it

Speaking of creativity, we continue on with the Ynot featuring Chapter 13 (Rich Man vs. Poor Man). Common Sense plays a poor man, and Ynot plays a rich man and they both spit at each other about the differences between the two men, and the lifestyles. Both lifestyles have their ups and downs, and that is what Common and Ynot are attempting to examine here. Over some laid-back old school drum-loop and snare, and an overpowered bassline, they drop ill rhymes, but of course, Common slightly outshines Ynot.

Maintaining and Sum Sh*t I Wrote are both battle raps / braggadiocio with great production. His clever lyricism, metaphors, and awesome delivery, and they set up the outro for the album Pop's Rap, which is just a pure jazz finish, with "Pops" talking over it.

With every song on Resurrection being 5 Stars with the exeption of two, and one PURE CLASSIC hip hop icon track, its a blur to me as to why you dont own this album if you dont own it. Resurrection is one of the purest, realest, most creative, and greatest hip hop albums in the history of mankind, maybe one of the best in music period. Common Sense is one of the greatest influences in hip hop music ever, and proves it with this pure masterpiece. EVERY single music fan should own a copy of this, even if they dont like rap... this is beyond hip hop. Its true classic music.

5 Stars


This is my entry into the "Where it All Began W/O", hosted by lambchops. However, instead of writing about the first album that i ever purchased (which was the Chronic, that i already reviewed), i wrote about the first underground hip hop album to enter my life, which happens to be this one. Here are the other participants, which i will update as we get more:

Aerocat
age6racer
Atchesonate
beckytcy
bigd99999
cntaur5
cr01
darkofnight
dbbum
DrDevience
DrFaustus
e-kleptic
emptywishes
eplovejoy
ez013182
foxy_shy
Freak369
Fuche_bu
Guildenstern
HipyX
insomniac1587
jeff_wilder78
Joubert
KCFoxy Kieli
KristinaFH
lambchops
lemon_lime
MattA75
mfunk75
netnut746
PacManY2J
paulyoungotti
plorentz
pmills1210
pogomom
Psychovant
pt-paratroopa
Quasar
RedDiva
roheblius
sfarmer76
shadesofblue
sparkless
speeddemon531
standells
SurgRN911
telynor
thevoid99
trust12345
vanwarp
voxpoptart
youngchinq