Common Readies "The Believer" W/ No I.D. & Kanye West, "I'm Always Gonna Offer Something New & Fresh"

Written by Cyrus Langhorne
Grammy-winning rapper Common has linked with No I.D. and Kanye West to help make his upcoming album, The Believer, provide fans with a more Chicago feel and follow-up 2008's Universal Mind Control.

The rapper-turned-actor's ninth LP will provide fans with a return to his raw hip-hop roots.

"For Believer, it was creating raw music, raw hip-hop," he said in an interview. "I just wanted to create good hip-hop music. When I create albums, they develop as I go along, 'cause I have different thoughts and visions. And then as you create the music, it takes its own personality and spirit to it. But the beginning of it is raw hip-hop, it's just soulful...Twilite Tone and No I.D., they produced my first three albums and they were the first producers I worked with. And Kanye is an extension of them. Kanye always says No I.D. is his mentor. That's how I met Kanye, through No I.D. So for me to have these three working on my album is going home again. But I'm always gonna offer something new and fresh." (MTV)

His upcoming project will also mark his return to Ye, the producer most responsible for 2005's Be and 2007's Finding Forever.

Be, a much tighter album that was produced primarily by Kanye West, followed in May 2005, netting four Grammy nominations. West remained on board for both Finding Forever (2007) and the lighter Universal Mind Control (2008), though the Neptunes dominated the latter. (All Music)

Common previously spoke with SOHH about not putting down the microphone despite having nearly two decades of music to his name.

"God willing, you'll get albums nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen," he laughingly promised last fall. "I feel like a jazz musician in many ways and I wanna keep creating music. I feel like I want to be doing shows when I'm sixty something." (SOHH)

Aside from his own music, the rapper recently spoke on President Barack Obama's impact on the rap game.

"I also don't find as much gangsta talk," Common explained in an interview. "You see the whole chain-shining-and-rim era is gone. That's like super-played out. Just to have that, I think, is part of the Obama effect...So you find these artists that are having that independent thinking of being able to go out and create for themselves." (Gawker)

A release date for The Believer has not yet been confirmed.

Check out a recent Common interview below:


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