Nobody Smiling Archives - RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture

New Music: Common feat. Vince Staples – “Kingdom”

RESPECT. Staff — Fri, 30 May 2014 18:30:34 +0000

Common’s Nobody Smiling album is on the way and we have a new taste of it today. Accompanied by Vince Staples, Common goes in over the No I.D.-produced, gospel-inspired cut. There will also be a short film to go along with the record, directed Hype Williams and you can watch the trailer for it below.

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New Music: Common feat. Ab-Soul – “Made in Black America” (prod. No I.D.)

RESPECT. Staff — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:01:07 +0000

Maintaining the sharpness he displayed on “War,” Common is back with another No I.D.-produced track from his upcoming album, Nobody Smiling. On “Made in Black America,” he and Ab-Soul elaborate how they came to hold their current political perspectives, detailing how they experience the world and why. Branded by America’s history like products marked with a bar code, they insist that there’s more to them than meets the eye, drawing our attention to the bar code as well as the list of ingredients.

For Common and Ab-Soul, the views they hold and how they express them – through mixtures of hope, cynicism, doubt, anger, confidence and faith – are intimately tied to how American life, black American life in particular, is experienced and made to be experienced through media narratives, popular representations and history. In other words, if you’re looking for a glimpse into black life – both its negative and positive dimensions – Common and Ab-Soul are saying, “Look at black people.” Take a look (listen) below.

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New Music: Common – “War”

RESPECT. Staff — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 17:39:18 +0000

Common is wasting no time dropping new music in 2014. The Chicago rapper announced yesterday that he will deliver his tenth studio album, Nobody Smiling, later this year. The album will be executive-produced by Chicago-bred producer extraordinaire No I.D. The first track off the album is a powerful song called “War.” On it Common paints a picture of the constant violence that occurs in Chicago, giving new meaning to the city’s troubling nickname, “Chiraq.” No I.D. samples vintage movie horns and combines them with chillingly hollow war drums, building a palpable battlefield on which these tragically young warriors live and die. As the interviews snippets at the end of the song suggest, Common is hoping to make a change with this album, hopefully directing more attention to his violence-stricken city. Listen to the powerful track below.

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