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Classic Recordings: Common-Black America Again

Fifteen tracks from an album that set out to write the history of Black America as a single continuous argument, and largely pulled it off.

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Common: Black America Again (2016)

By 2016 Common had been rapping for twenty-five years, had won an Oscar for "Glory" from Selma, and had earned the right to make exactly the record he wanted. What he wanted was an album-length essay, and Black America Again is one of the most coherent statements of his career.

The production is the first thing to notice: Karriem Riggins and Robert Glasper built it around live players, so the record moves like a jazz album rather than a rap one, with interludes, tempo changes and instrumental passages that go where they want.

The second thing is the subject. Mass incarceration, policing, Chicago, gentrification and Black women's labour are the recurring themes, and the album does not treat them as separate topics.

What to listen for

"Black America Again" with Stevie Wonder is the centrepiece and the album in miniature — six minutes, no chorus for most of it, and Wonder arriving at the end to sing the only consoling line on the record.

"Letter To The Free" with Bilal is the best thing here. Written for Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th, it is about the constitutional clause that permits involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime, and it won an Emmy.

"Little Chicago Boy" with Tasha Cobbs Leonard is about his father and is the most personal track, and "The Day Women Took Over" with BJ The Chicago Kid is the most joyful.

"Rain" with John Legend is the most accessible, and "Love Star" with Marsha Ambrosius and PJ is the prettiest.

"Red Wine" and "A Bigger Picture Called Free" both feature Syd, and the second is the most musically ambitious thing on the album.

The interludes — "Word From Moe Luv", "A Moment In The Sun", "On A Whim" — are structural and should not be skipped.

Go deeper

Like Water for Chocolate (2000) and Be (2005) are the two essential Common albums — the first produced largely by the Soulquarians, the second almost entirely by Kanye West.

Karriem Riggins is the name to follow from here: a jazz drummer and hip-hop producer whose own records are excellent and who worked closely with J Dilla.

Listening note: the album moves like a jazz record because it was built by jazz musicians — live players, real tempo changes, instrumental passages that go where they want rather than where a rap arrangement expects. Do not skip the interludes; they are how the argument is threaded together, and without them the record reads as a set of songs about separate topics.

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