★★★★★
In the 20 years since the release of Common's 1994 album Resurrection, the rapper has become a rare transcendent figure in hip-hop. He's walked the tightrope from the underground to the mainstream, from Chicago's slums to Hollywood's red carpets, and his music has evolved for better and worse with his rising celebrity...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2014-08-09
★★★★★
It might be some kind of lèse-majesté to say so, but it can be hard taking Common at his word these days. As the conscious rapper par excellence, Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. has made streetwise candor both his style and his ethos, and has enjoyed a unique faith in his integrity as a result. Absurd brouhaha aside, would any other currently active hip-hop performer get invited to read poetry at the White House...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-07-31
★★★★★
In the last few years, Chicago-bred, New York-based rapper Common's acting career has become his main hustle. His latest - entirely produced by long-time collaborator No I.D. - reveals an enlivened emcee, the same forceful voice who gave us classic albums such as Be and Like Water For Chocolate. On Nobody's Smiling, a reference to the Chi's gang violence epidemic, Common goes out of his way to incorporate that city's new era of street rappers...
- nowtoronto.com
2014-07-31
★★★★★
In a wordy yet clever verse from her 2011 song "Live Up," rapper Jean Grae detailed the inherent tensions that characterize being a rapper: "My person is the person in the verses' stories/VS the person in the first-person stories/VS the person to disperse the stories." As the author, subject and performer of her work, Jean has an intensified relationship with her music because in a very real sense, she is her music...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2014-07-30
★★★★★
Common has always been Chicago's ambassador of Hip Hop. Kanye West may be the most influential artist coming out of the Windy City, but Common's rhymes have always felt like the city's presence in popular Hip Hop; with his rhymes closely mirroring the state of city along with his pride and confidence. Unfortunately, Chicago hasn't been in great condition in the past few years...
- allhiphop.com
2014-07-27
★★★★★
This Chicago rapper's 10th studio album was inspired by his hometown's epidemic of violence. It's an often-powerful set of bleak, hard-hitting hip hop produced by longtime off-and-on collaborator No I.D., featuring a mostly dark sound with ominous synths and cold beats accompanying gritty, descriptive raps of hard times in the Windy City. Guests include up-and-coming rappers Lil Herb, Dreezy and Vince Staples. 7/25/2014
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- kexp.org
2014-07-26
★★★★★
"A black figure...in the middle with chaos and gunfire...the beast is runnin' rampant."
Those are words Common rapped on "Chi-City," a song off his 2005 album Be. That album, now considered by some to be one of the few hip-hop classics of the 2000s (XXL gave it its highest rating), was a detailed account of life on the city's South Side, where Com grew up...
- www.xxlmag.com
2014-07-26
★★★★★
Common exists in sainted territory in hip-hop: the rare rapper who's appeared on "Oprah", he's earned a default level of respect and can reliably release major label albums every few years, no matter what the industry climate. For many, Common's latest album, Nobody's Smiling, will hold a polarized position in the midst of Chicago's senseless violence, a symbol of all that is right in a genre too often derided for moral depravity and/or artistic bankruptcy...
- pitchfork.com
2014-07-25
★★★★★
The last time Common released an album, back in 2011, he got tangled up in a halfhearted beef with Drake. This time he's not making the same mistake: Nobody's Smiling, again produced by old Chi-town friend No I.D., features plenty of younger artists - check rising Cali rapper Vince Staples' blunted musings on the gospel-laced "Kingdom." More important, it has some of Com's tightest storytelling in years...
- www.rollingstone.com
2014-07-26
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