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b. Lonnie Rashied Lynn, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Originally recording under the expanded pseudonym Common Sense, Lynn is one of the more enlightened contemporary rappers, proffering a heady mix of verbiage and syncopated hip-hop rhythms. He made his debut in 1992 with Can I Borrow A Dollar?, a series of tracks on consumer identity with the occasional lapse into X-rated anatomical detail to make it a hit with the hardcore hip-hop audience. Conversely, the best song was "Take It EZ", a laid-back statement of identity and individuality. By the advent of Resurrection in 1994, Lynn had abandoned some of the bloated misogyny of the debut, and the results were excellent. Fuelled by the soul and funk beats of his DJ No I.D., the album provided the rapper with a license to indulge his self-evident love of vocabulary and syntax (particularly affecting was his sketch of black economics - "Chapter 13 (Rich Man vs. Poor Man)"). A follow-up set was then delayed as Lynn lost a court battle to retain the rights to his name Common Sense, eventually abbreviating it simply to Common. In the interim, he also completed classes in music theory, encouraging him to bring live instrumentation to the fore on his new recordings. One Day It'll All Make Sense also displayed further development in songwriting. Although it lacked the consistency of its predecessor, there were several stand-out cuts, notably the single "Reminding Me (Of Sef)", which mourned the loss of a childhood friend. Common made his MCA Records debut in March 2000 with Like Water For Chocolate. On the ambitious Electric Circus, Common experimented with other musical genres to create a wildly erratic but compelling multi-layered album that stood out as one of the finest hip-hop releases of 2002. Be followed in 2005, and then Finding Forever in 2007. Universal Mind Control released at the end of 2008. Sound Files (MP3) Universal Mind Control [UMC] (f/Pharrell) The People (f/Dwele) - from the album Finding Forever Go! (f/Kanye West) - from the album Be Testify - from the album Be *Come Close (f/Mary J.Blige) - from the album Electric Circus The Light - from the album Like Water For Chocolate I Used To Love H.E.R. - from the album Resurrection NB: MP3s with a * next to it indicates that it is located on another server. Reason being is because these MP3s exceed 5 MB and Geocities (the web host for this site) will not accept MP3s over 5 MB. These MP3s are located under the server Angelfire. So in order to download MP3s that are under this server, you must left click once on the name of the MP3 that you want to download, which will take you onto a different page (because it is on a different server, and Geocities do not allow direct links to files located on other servers) and then either left click (if you want to download the MP3 but do not want to save it) or right click, then "Save Target As..." (if you want to the save the MP3) on the name of the MP3 that you want to listen to. Easy as... |
 Can I Borrow A Dollar? Released: 1992 Label: Relativity |
 Resurrection Released: 1994 Label: Relativity |
 One Day It'll All Make Sense Released: 1997 Label: Relativity |
 Like Water For Chocolate Released: 2000 Label: Relativity |
 Electric Circus Released: 2002 Label: MCA |
 Be Released: 2005 Label: Geffen |
 Finding Forever Released: 2007 Label: Geffen |
 Universal Mind Control Released: 2008 Label: Geffen |