Reviews

Common's first two offerings -- Can You Spare a Dollar and the excellent Resurrection -- won him critical acclaim, but rap fans have been slow to acknowledge his integrity and prowess. One Day's rightful first dish, the brief but savory "Invocation," showcases the talents of this traditionally underappreciated rapper. Here a George Benson-inspired guitar loop massages a lazy old-school beat (like Run-DMC's "Walk This Way" at half the tempo) accompanied by a distant, swaggering horn line. Common applies a short order of verse slightly behind the beat. He starts off talking about the afterlife and listening to Stevie Wonder, he brags a little, condemns drugs and violence on the street, and tells a kid that his new record is out. It's the real beginning because the string of stream-of-conscious rhymes says Common has a new record better than the deep-thought cliches in the opener.

In "Invocation," and several other places on One Day, Common uses clever wordplay and production littered with post-bop samples and breakbeats. He plunges into live instrumentation elsewhere ("Retrospect for Life," "All Night Long," "G.O.D. [Gaining One's Definition]," and "My City"). He also allies himself with a who's who of hip-hop personalities, including De La Soul, Lauryn Hill of the Fugees, Erykah Badu, Canibus, Black Thought of the Roots, and Cee-Lo of the Goodie Mob.

The results are far from perfect. Though his usual hip-hop producers, Dug Infinite, No I.D., and Ynot, continue the progressive funk tradition of Resurrection, their stabs at live arrangement (particularly No I.D.'s) are burdened with a heavy-handed sentimentality that flirts too closely with the rap status quo Common had avoided so expertly in the past (notably "I Used to Love H.E.R." and "Orange Pineapple Juice").

One Day is supposed to be Common's conscience record, but when he's at his most reflective he moves away from what he does best. Admittedly, with the recent birth of his first child, his initiation into the Native Tongue Family, an album finally out a year late, and the hard-won respect of hip-hop colleagues, critics, and fans, Common has every reason in the world to get mushy on his listeners. But that does not mean we have to like it.

-- Victor Haseman