Release Date: December 20th, 2011
Of all the rappers who made forays into acting (Mos Def, 50 Cent, Ludacris), Common seemed most poised to be truly taken seriously, to have his hip-hop career separated from his thespian ambitions. Even from his first fictional role in Smokin’ Aces, Common was always natural, exhibiting a cool calm that elevated the largely shoddy scripts he chose to be a part of. So when Common threw himself headlong into the television world, grabbing second lead on “meh” AMC drama Hell On Wheels, one would be forgiven for thinking that the underrated career of Chicago’s minor-key Aught success story (the major-key blow-up being Kanye West) was over.
Confounding as ever, Common releases the awkwardly titled The Dreamer/The Believer, his ninth studio LP and first with hit-making Chicago beatman No I.D. since 1997’s One Day It’ll All Make Sense. As he is wont to do, No I.D. turns Common’s career around from his recent ill-advised foray into the Neptunes’ territory back to the R&B side of hip-hop. Breezy and relatively well-edited, Common rebounds back to acceptability, a musical development akin to his first post-Be effort, Finding Forever.
Purported by Common himself to be a more positively energized record, Dreamer bears out this conscious euphoria with all the subtlety expected of a hip-hop album—Maya Angelou makes a disappointing appearance, and the necessary Pops cameo gets its own unnecessary closing track. But Common is always at his best poetically spitting platitudes, and the times he tries to go hard (“Sweet”) seem awkward and tacked-on at best. First two singles “Ghetto Dreams” and “Blue Sky” are typical hip-hop singles, building off acceptably effervescent hooks, the latter particularly shining from an ELO sample. Most tracks have an unnamed group of R&B crooners pumping a sugary chorus, Common taking a step back and contributing his two verses before stepping out. This leads the middle of the album toward a blending bit of moderate acceptability without many distinguishing features. Tracks such as “Celebrate” and “Lovin’ I Lost” are Common’s natural habitat, but there’s precious little variety here to make it seem like Lonnie is doing anything but painting by numbers. Common is middle ground on almost all tracks here, parsing out rich-man flaunts, horny-boy come-ons and on-the-street poetry. Just like his film roles, Common inhabits a comfortable calm—never anything that stands out too far, but also nothing that disappoints.
Unfortunately, that comfort is the most disappointing part of Dreamer. When John Legend arrives to do the chorus on “The Believer,” his powerful croon is a blast of energy into what has essentially devolved into a hangout album. Common’s interest wanes from song to song, usually depending on whether the guest he has next to him is credited or not, be it Angelou, Legend or a fairly restrained Nas. But through the excellently produced middle portions, the reality that Common was more focused on his acting this year than his recording becomes apparent. No I.D. gets to plead his case for being the hush-hush reason West and Common both made it out of the Chi—Dreamer sometimes feels like it should be filed under No I.D. instead of Common.
Common’s foray into techno-inspired hip-hop was a flop, righteously so. After the excellence of Like Water for Chocolate and Be, Common has earned the benefit of the doubt when easing back into his comfort zone. But The Dreamer/The Believer is too inconsistent in message to be positive and too simple to be a fitting follow-up. Common still raps with an ancestor’s wisdom and when he tries, he can pull magical things out of his hat (“The Believer”), but his other ventures rightly sway his vision. Maybe there’s still a blissful, worthy successor to Be rolling around Common’s brain; The Dreamer/The Believer, as good as it sometimes is, just isn’t that.
Common – The Dreamer/The Believer tracklist:
- “The Dreamer” (featuring Maya Angelou)
- “Ghetto Dreams” (featuring Nas)
- “Blue Sky”
- “Sweet”
- “Gold”
- “Lovin’ I Lost”
- “Raw (How You Like It)”
- “Cloth”
- “Celebrate”
- “Windows”
- “The Believer” (featuring John Legend)
- “Pops Belief” (featuring Lonnie “Pops” Lynn)
