Search - Common :: Electric Circus [Limited Edition w/ Bonus DVD]

Rock & roll has grabbed Common by the neck and given him a good shake. With its heavy, multilayered sound, Electric Circus is steeped in the Chicago-born and Brooklyn-based rapper?s newfound love for Pink Floyd, Traffic, and, above all, Jimi Hendrix. But, like many new converts to anything, Common goes a little off the deep end. His ambitious quest to expand the boundaries of hip-hop is crammed to the gills with a thousand motifs and is a little too busy to be a complete success. Perhaps not surprisingly, Common?s rhymes (sample lyric: "my mind screams like Al Green to stay together!") take a distant second place to the complex musical landscape he?s fashioned. In addition, a sidereal array of vocalists (including Stereolab?s Laetitia Sadier, Mary J. Blige, Jill Scott, Cee-Lo, Bilal, and Common?s main squeeze, Erykah Badu) and musicians (Prince, Bobbi Humphrey, Nicholas Payton) add to the sonic density. All in all, Electric Circus mightn?t strike the universal chord that Common sought, but it?s a bold, elaborate project that's definitely worth a listen. --Rebecca Levine