Is this a match made in some faraway hip-hop heaven or inside a sparring ring with one participant in the red corner and the other in the blue awaiting a “seconds-out” demand? Praise be, it’s the former. What we have here isn’t a shouting contest with a brace of headbutting heavyweights but a respectful huddle between two of the most highly regarded names in the game.
That said, perhaps the best known of the pair is Common (Lonnie Lynn), who has been a notable voice in hip-hop since his 1992 debut album, Can I Borrow a Dollar? Along with successive records, that debut established Common as one of the pioneers of conscious hip-hop, a subgenre that expressively rejected the more overtly violent and misogynistic elements of gangsta rap.
Over the past few decades, Common has since eased his way into other creative forms (including acting, writing and podcasting), as well as using the scope of his successes to make people more aware of social causes, with a particular focus on education, justice and mental health.
Pete Rock (Peter O Phillips), meanwhile, is regarded as one of hip-hop’s most skilled and distinctive producers, credited with fusing the form with jazz and funk. “You ever miss that feeling of a good release in hip-hop?” asked Rock on a recent Instagram post. “Remember how exciting that felt?”
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These questions are answered throughout The Auditorium Vol 1, which stylistically at least harks back to the pair’s output in 1990s, a time that many regard as hip-hop’s Golden Age.
From the start, Dreamin’ sets the nostalgic scene, with Common reliving memories of Aretha Franklin, Prince (“he was time travelling”), Sheila E (“reminded me about the glamorous life”), Muhammad Ali (“tellin’ me why he had to fight”), Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X. Fortunate features Rock’s sleek beats under a tsunami of a Common monologue, while Wise Up has a vintage feel, with Rock shaving slivers off MC Shan’s 1986 classic The Bridge, and placing them under Common’s unequivocal philosophising (the ideas of which pack a punch – “I could tell he know the ghetto where we both tryna get to, it ain’t coincidental. His is on the streets, mine is over instrumentals ...”)
The mix is broadened with some guest singers, including Jennifer Hudson on A God (There Is), and De La Soul’s Kelvin “Posdnuos” Mercer on When the Sun Shines Again, but this particular auditorium is the domain of Common and Rock. Between them, they re-create in evocative detail (and without sentimentality) their past while adding contemporary touches that can only point to the inevitable: Vol 2.
