STRANGE FRUIT REVISTED: Common's Latest Album Is Ripe For the Picking During The Dawn of the Post-Obama Era

                                                               

  As America grapples with the after effects of a divisive election as the suns sets on the Obama era, Chicago MC Common returns with his new album Black America Again. A potent and timely follow-up to 2014's Nobody's Smiling, Common takes aim at US political and racial divide hitting the bulls-eye every time with a topical accuracy that holds the listener's attention like a grudge.

Black America Again recalls classic albums What's Going On (1971) It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back (1988) and It Was Written (1996). Make no mistake--- this record is no throwback. It's more like a throwdown---a liberating call for a revolution of the mind. 

 He calls out older rappers with low frequencies on Pyramids ("A nigga told me that he only rhyme for nineteen years olds/nigga you should rhyme wherever the spirit goes"), using witty Tribe Called Quest/Buju Banton references ("In theory though/low-end scenario/sound-boy burial/drove me/to classic material"). The couplets come hard and fast, name-checking Black facts and references like a rapid-fire lyrical heirloom (''A child of a fresher God/inspired by the former Joanne Chesimard").

Sampled vocals from Wu-Tang's Ol' Dirty Bastard---Flavor Flav to Com's Chuck D play vocal backup as he slides in and out of other rappers' cadences like a chameleon. With dope lines like "I'm on a award tour/with Muhammad the Prophet/my man/and when we land the pyramids will stand" Common's resuscitates conscious rap from its dormant slumber.

 Anchored by a vintage James Brown interview with Stevie Wonder on the chorus, lead single Black America Again finds Common dusting off MC Lyte (''Hot damn/black America again/think of Sandra Bland/as I'm starin in the wind'') and Chuck D's (again) lyrics while taking on Black America's woes moving from issue to issue with the speed of light.

He lashes out on the gentrification of Black neighborhoods ("Endangered in our own habitat/the guns and dope/ya'll can have it back/as a matter of fact/we them lab rats/ya'll built the projects for/now you won't ya hood back"), racism's origins (''the color of my skin/ya'll compared it to sin/the darker that it gets/the less fairer that it's been") and USA hypocrisy and insincerity ("To your schools and prisons ya'll/they try to pipe us/to your political parties/invite us/instead of makin' broken laws/to spite us/you know we from a family of  figh-tas/fought in your wars and our wars/you put a nigga in Star Wars/maybe you need two/and then maybe we will believe you"). 

 No topic is safe. Common touches on slavery's link to Black on Black crime ("Made the whip crackle on our backs slow/made us go through the back door/made us raffle black body from the auction blocks/now we slave to the blocks/on it we spray shots/leavin' our to lay in a box") genocidal ecology("As dirt as the water in Flint/the system is"), Hollywood and sports ("It took Viola Davis to say this/the roles of the Help and the gangstas/are all they really gave us" and "Is it a felony or misdemeanor /that Maria Sharapova makes more than Serena?"). With the force of David, Common's proverbial stones shatter the glass of America's Goliathesque illusion of a post-racial nation.

 A Letter to the Free's mournful marching drum and piano intro is part Negro spiritual/part second line funeral procession. The aura of Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit hang over antebellum crime scenes of yesteryear ("Southern leaves/southern trees we hung from") as Common relives the pain of lynching and slavery ("Tied with the rope that my grandmother died/pride of the Pilgrims/ affects the lives of the millions/since slave days separate the fathers from the children"). The classic Chuck D lyrical references continue ("Shot me with your raygun (Reagan)/and know you wanna Trump me").

A speech by Minister Farrahkhan and well placed Willie Mitchell horn sample from O.V. Wright's sample I'm Going Home (To Live With God) power album standout Home. The song takes a page from Slick Rick the Ruler's detailed storytelling and Nas' spiritual-minded narratives. Blending Islamic, Christianity and Black Nationalism ("Goin to the wilderness like Musa on a pilgrimage/streets and villages /speak with a diligence and authority/ to fake out a Pharisee and Saudecee/give'em that Garvey wreath from the Black odyssey") Home finds Common as the God-ordained emcee charged with saving Hip Hop from its excesses ("Freedom riders need passengers/in your lyrics use passages/to make'em rise like Lazarus" and "Take house niggas out the darkness/til they lights is on"). In exchange for his obedience he is promised "Oscars, Emmys and Grammys" but cautioned by the Creator to "give those to his family" and not get caught up in the world's "insanity and vanity".

Black America Again is not all fire and brimestone. Just as he did decades ago with The Light (2000) and Come Close (2003), Common's penchant for bearing his soul for the ladies continues. On Love Star featuring Marsha Ambrosious and PJ, he revives the melody to Mtume's You Me and He (1984) with sly come-ons like "since God resides/we can start our own line/our offspring can be/ you,me and he/ combined". When he expresses his intent to the female subject he inserts of the Moments' Sexy Mama (1974) letting the sensual vibe linger like a Rakim cliffhanger rhyme.

On The Day The Women Took Over, Common channels Nas' If I Ruled The World (1996) creating a utopian world where femininity presides over a place where "war is over/and women get medals for being soldiers." The absence of female pet peeves and the celebration of historic Black women ("Toilet seats down---that's a no brainer/monuments in Washington of Famie Lou Hamer") coexist side by side with female sexual satisfaction ( "No stick and movers/or quick shooters/no fifteen minutes/than calling you an Uber").  Black heroines Harriet Tubman, Sojurner Truth Rosa Parks, public figures Beyonce, Oprah, Michelle Obama and scholastics like writer Michelle Alexander and activist/educator Liz Dozier are permanent fixtures in this aspirational world. To quote the Ohio Players---heaven must be like this.

Little Chicago Boy finds Common retracing the steps of his late father Lonnie Pops Lynn who passed away from cancer in 2014 but not before dispatching final words of wisdom as guest vocalist Tasha Cobbs offers up a passionate prayer to the melody of Amazing Grace. 

Carefully curated collaborators and stellar live instrumentation along with No ID and Karriem Riggins' production provide a blueprint of how mature rap albums should be made. As Golden Era/Gen-Xer rappers enter their fourth and fifth decades let's be hopeful that their life experiences inspire records as great as Black America Again.