Top-tier emcee Common is gearing up to release a brand new album next month, and for the latest single he’s hooked up with a surprising collaborator. Offering the mighty “Hercules” as the follow-up to soulful cut “HER Love”, the Chicago emcee linked up with veteran producer Swizz Beatz who turns in a beastly drum pattern punctuated by neo-noir strings.
While Swizz sounds relatively calmer and more soulful on this track, compared to his usual hook work, Common buzzes with hungry rhymes about the struggle for freedom and strength that drives hip hop. Spinning through a complicated rhyme scheme reminiscent of Common’s earlier work, the emcee is sharp as he barges through what may be the toughest cut on an album he is describing as music with “depth, soul and dimension”.
The surveillance styled music video is equally biting, featuring Common and two others (including a guesting Vince Staples) thwarting a corner store robbery being committed by two hooded white people.
Common’s Let Love will be released on 30th August 2019 and will be his first for Loma Vista Recordings. The album is said to be inspired mainly by the rapper’s best-selling memoir ” Let Love Have The Last Word”, which has been lauded for its vulnerability and personal approach to Common’s career and life. If you’re over in North America or Europe anytime soon make sure to check out dates for Common’s current “Let Love Tour”.
