Jackpot, I feel you, I do (pause). But damn, can't a dude get some room to breathe in hip-hop? Every time this guy Common tries to do anything but boring ass boom bap rap, people try to get on him. Nah, he doesn't need Kanye. And maybe it'd cost too much and be too much of a pain in the ass for him to work with Kanye at this point anyway.

Just saying, if you're a fan, be a fan. Remember what it felt like to be a fan? Being a fan means accepting of the fact that an artist is going to (gasp!) be creative and try new shit (hardly the case with hip-hop, but you know how that goes). If you're a fickle fan, a halfway fan, you're going to bail on the artist. And that's why hip-hop stays losing, because fans don't respect their artists being artists. Fans think that the music should be for them all the time. That it shouldn't be about the artist expressing themselves creatively, in whatever sonic fashion that might be.

Thing is, if Common's album sucks, what are your reasons for thinking as such? What makes something weak? Or wack? How is that an artist you like does something, and you can't just appreciate their artistic effort for what it, no matter how different it is?

Do people look at a Picasso painting and go, "Yo that shit is wack." Not really. They might say they don't like something or find it as visually appealing as another piece of work, but there's still a respect and place for it in the art world. It doesn't just get thrown in the trash.

I feel like this new Common single is alright- it's some electro Afrika Bambataa rap shit. It's actually taking that classic hip-hop vibe Com has always had and going even more retro with it. It's not incredible, but then again, I don't think anything Common has done since Resurrection has been incredible (incense burners feel free to hate), but that's just my opinion. However I have a deep appreciation for Common as a songwriter, performer, and artist. And I don't let my opinion impose on my appreciation. They are two different things.

Hopefully the whole album is somewhere in the same vein as the new single. I don't wanna hear no boring boom bap rap shit from Common anymore. We just had two albums of that. And I'm sure he's tired of it. The guy's gotta grow, he's an artist. Again, Picasso doesn't paint the same picture twice.

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