Common - Testify

Seen and been through struggle her whole life

Made a transition from being his ho to his wife

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for not posting a song yesterday. It was one of those hectic/busy days and I didn't get the chance to. For those who haven't noticed or caught on, everytime I post a song on here I also post a link on Twitter. On days like yesterday, when I don't have time to write an actual post I still recommend a song on Twitter. Yesterday, however, I did neither. My apologies.

Secondly, I had an extremely difficult time picking a single Common song for today's post. I have to admit my final decision was slightly random. The thing with Common is that his music career is very divided. When he first entered the scene as Common Sense in the early '90s, he was deep in the depths of the underground. Hailing from "Chi-City," he became pretty influential with his intelligent lyrics and soulful beats. He was a glimmer of hope in the otherwise commercialized rap genre. And he stayed this way for quite some time--four albums to be exact. It was with his fifth album, Electric Circus, that Common started to enter the mainstream world and stray away from the more urban sound he was known for thus far. It was this album that really divided his subsequent work and even his fans. Although gaining new ones, he also turned off a lot of his old ones--including myself.

It's not that I've hated his last four albums entirely or loved his first four exponentially more, it's just the frustration of knowing what he was that bothers me. Knowing how good he was before and how mediocre he is now. Don't get me wrong, he's still better than majority of the mainstream rappers out there so I still give him cred. But I've seen too many rappers emerge from the underground only to disappointment. So as much as I wanted to pick a song from his more underground days (i.e. "I Used to Love H.E.R.," "The 6th Sense," "Retrospect for Life"), I decided on "Testify" from his sixth album--Be.

I picked this song not only because of how much I actually like it, but to show that despite everything Common still can rhyme intelligently. Unfortunately, it's less common (no pun intended) lately. With the release of his 8th album earlier this week came a lot of disappointement. You can read a more in-depth review of the album that I did for Pretty Much Amazing! here. Anyway, "Testify" tells the story of a woman who pins her own crime on her husband and ends up fooling the court. The music video is clearly influenced by the movie The Usual Suspects, which is great by the way.