Do people take his rap cred seriously?

"conscious-style?" Is that like, say, "country-style," except instead of being influenced by a rural area, you're influenced by sentience?

I wish Common still had Sense.

What has happened to Gawker?

For national advertising money I'd be a tool! Call me, GAP, Lincoln Navigator and/or Smirnoff!

Especially Smirnoff!

Common, indeed.

Ice T -> Ice Cube -> Method Man -> Red Man -> P. Diddy -> Flav

If Mos and Com want to tread that path, I wish them well. We're getting into William Huang-like shelf-lives, recently.

Amen and pass the haterade Hamilton, because I've been getting a whiff of eau de douche from Common for a while. I can't put my finger on it but he reminds me of the feminist rhetoric/leftist/spoken word spouting dudes in undergrad who pretended to be sensitive to get freshman ass.

So I've heard...

I much prefer my rappers unconscious.

Yeah I used to write in my journal about damning the man, too. Look at us now. . .

"I might've failed to mention that the shit was creative
But once the man got you well he altered the native
Told her if she got an energetic gimmick
That she could make money, and she did it like a dummy
Now I see her in commercials, she's universal
She used to only swing it with the inner-city circle. . ."
-Common

Vegetarian Rapper Not Quite As Annoying As Vegetarian Electrono-Twit-Musician, Still Kinda Annoying

LOL @ "truly fresh music"!!!!!!!!

I have it on good authority he's dating Serena Williams. I can't decide where that falls on the loathing scale, with a 10 being his holiday Gap ads.

@BK_KT: He can still rhyme, even if he's a tool in all other areas.

Aw. Common and I have a few friends in ,uh, common and he's a cool guy. He's just trying to get into acting. I mean "ACTING"! cause he's a little hyperbolic with it.
That said,
@roodles: You aren't super far off as far as I can tell. He's not pretending, but he really plays it up.

But Talib Kweli? That's the one you have to watch out for. Grimy.

Hamilton Nolan fancies himself a hip-hop critic on the side.

But ask yourself -

Do you want a hip-hop critic who takes a vegetarian rapper seriously?

Do you want a hip-hop critic that grafts tired, indie-cred sell-out bullshit onto an genre that refreshingly lacks it?

And in conclusion, do you want a hip-hop critic who looks like this?

Don't encourage him. Thank you for your time.

Quite a fashion difference between the photo and the trailer.

@Jonas_Cord: Damn. Zing. I do want a hip hop critic who takes a vegetarian rapper seriously. I'm not sure what the fuck bacon has to do with hip hop. And it's my favorite food.

I dunno, his jaunty chapeau there just screams street cred to me.

As someone who has worked selling artists out to brands such as the Gap for 3years, let me explain this to you, Hamilton dear. If you paid for music, Common wouldn't be on commercials. But since you've been stealing the $.10 he would have made per album for the past, oh, 10 years, he now has to shill for the Gap to make decent art. This isn't Common's fault - it's yours. Buy music.

@Jonas_Cord: Mmmyes, it is refreshing that in hip-hop the question of selling-out has nothing to do with giving artistic notions over to marketing, licensing or being tooled by corporate America.

Reee-freshing. It's like lemonade.

Is it cool he's in Wanted or is James McAvoy just as cred killing as Keanu Reeves?

@roodles:
Yeah he's a real prick. I used to think the same as Nolan BUT not any more.

All those guys are soo disappointing!? I don't trust no one now. I just listen to the beats and the music and that's it.

They are so pretentious, contrived, fake and insert any other name for 'being full of S**T!'

@ambitious: Well, you're right, bacon has nothing to do with hip-hop (an oversight, surely) but when you're rapping about animal rights you've crossed the line. He's a conscious rapper all right - conscious of things white people like.

@jackvinyl: My simple point is the moment you are more interested in ideology and less about shaking your ass, you fucking ruin music. You'd have a point if he was a street musician that rapped to kids about why they shouldn't eat the cute little piggys - but back here in the real world he's been marketed and licensed the very second he became a musician with gigs.

it's so conscious to have a song like "the corner" with a great kanye sample, gil scott heron talking, and then the lyric "talkin' straightforward to HOES!" A better rapper would make that song good. Common, you really can't have it all, dude.

@Jonas_Cord: Yeah, I don't get your point. Scratch that - I DO get your point. I just think it's inane. But, then again, I'm more interested in ideology and am not so much about shaking my ass so I've got my own problems, no?

As a black person, I should know better. No vegetarianism, and only shaking of ass for me. I mean, if I want to be "real".

@Jonas_Cord: I hear you - you're all about the music.

I don't really care about the whole selling-out thing b/c i agree w/ you that to work in the entertainment industry, you are asking to be bought and sold and wherever those lines get drawn is subjective in too many ways to keep track. But,I don't agree that a focus on an artists' ideology ruins the art. If an artist stakes a claim at some sort of moral superiority or wears the crown of indignation and then acts hypocritically, he should get served - KRS-ONE sold out himself, his own ideologies for some Nike money.

I don't care that KRS sold Nikes, I care that he sold himself...

I dig that we now have some writing who can actually speak on rap and not come off as condescending and out of touch. I always look forward to Mr. Nolan's hip-hop musings.

Your fogot the Sprite commercial where he ruined "Compared to What?"

Don't forget his uber-sensitive art teacher appearance on 'One on One.'

Ooohhh, why can't I find that picture of him with the crocheted pants back when he was with Erykah Badu? Did he pay off Google image to make sure they went away?

not buyin' yer argument. i'm a fan even if he backs obama.
i'm not a businessman i'm a BUSINESS, MAN!
-Jay-Z

@Jonas_Cord: I'm late to this party, but what does his picture have to do with anything? Gah.

@MENACEIISOBRIETY: Droll..

You forgot the part about he's dating Serena Williams. Which was titled with "Hey she doesn't play for that team!"

what about all the homophobic lyrics and stage rants that are an obvious cover for his own insecurities?

common is a tool, but that's the bigest reason for it-- oh, and also the stupid newsboy hats

@hunterw: *biggest

common's like thousands of kids who go off to college and discover a "culture" and immerse themselves in it until they find another one that they like better, etc, etc. remember the crocheted kufi, ponchos and good times outfits from the badu days? or his shirts and ties (with knots the size of an oldsmobile) of a few years ago?

the difference is, college kids usually go through this when they're 18, 19, 20 years old...this clown's been doing it in his mid-20 through mid-30s. find yourself yet dude?

plus, his music is glorified r&b and there's no such thing as jesus.

Don't hate the hater, hate the hat.

Seriously--- he's gotta put his kids through school somehow. Don't hate so hard.

I gotta say, in the Erykah Badu dating trajectory: Dr. Dre > Andre 3000 > Common.