On This Day 21 Years Ago, Common Released His Classic Album ‘Be’

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On This Day 21 Years Ago, Common Released His Classic Album ‘Be’

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On this day 21 years ago, Common released Be, his warm opus largely headed by a white-hot Kanye West. The Chicago rappers paired up for eight of the ten songs, with J Dilla dropping in for the two standouts “Love Is…” and “It’s Your World (Part 1 & 2)”.

It came on the heels of an ambitious but commercially underwhelming Electric Circus in 2002 that some critics trashed. “So, is this genius or is this madness? As enjoyable as it is on occasion, I’m inclined to side with the latter. Marvin Gaye tried it. Richard Ashcroft tried it. One of them did a fantastic job, the other did not. Common sits somewhere between the two. Odd. Very, very odd,” Nick Southall wrote for Stylus........

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