Common Preps Album W/ Kanye West, "Ye & I Know We Want To Do Some Pure Hip-Hop"

Written by Rosario Harper

Grammy-winning rapper Common recently spoke on his upcoming Believer album which will feature production from Kanye West.
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The Chicago-based emcee sees the LP coming out as soon as summer 2010.

"I'm actually working with No I.D. and Twilite Tone and Kanye West. Man, we're looking forward to making some powerful music," Common explained in an interview. "I feel really excited, man. [Me and No I.D.] did some preliminary pre-production type stuff, and it just felt so good to be working with him. It felt like, 'Man, life is really, really good.' It's full circle. You meet up with the person who's partially responsible for beginning your career, and you're like, 'Man, this is really cool -- that we meet at this place in our lives and our creative journeys and we really are enthused to work with each other.' [Me and Kanye] know that we want to do some raw hip-hop. That's exactly the direction and feel we want, so that's the basis of it. 'Ye and I definitely know we want to do some pure hip-hop. I'm looking for an early summer release." (Entertainment Weekly)

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)

The upcoming project will also mark his reunion with West, the producer 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 retiring 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)

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

Look at a recent Common interview below:

sohh.com