Today in Hip-Hop — November 4: Common’s Black America Again Turns 10, and the Day DJ Premier Scored Both Jay-Z and Rakim

November 4, 2016. Four days before the country voted, Common dropped Black America Again. He timed it that way on purpose. Ten years on, people remember it as the protest album from the “Glory” guy, with Stevie Wonder on the title track. Here’s the jewel. Track eight, “Pyramids,” is a Chicago rapper over a jazz drummer’s beat, and he hands the hook to a dead Wu-Tang member. Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Brooklyn Zoo” line carries the chorus: “MCs I’ll be burnin’, burnin’ hot.”

A Drummer Built It

The sound belongs to Karriem Riggins. He’s a Detroit jazz drummer who met Common and J Dilla in the same year, 1996, and Dilla went on to buy the first beat Riggins ever sold. Twenty years later Riggins co-executive produced this album with No I.D. and Common himself, and he has a hand in nearly every beat. Robert Glasper co-produced the title track and handles the interludes. It’s a live-room palette that sounded nothing like what was charting in 2016. They flipped Juice’s “Catch a Groove” for the title track, brought in Stevie Wonder, and put Chuck D and MC Lyte in the background vocals. Common was signaling which lineage he was talking to.

The record wasn’t subtle about its politics. “The Day Women Took Over” imagines exactly what the title says. The closer, “Letter to the Free” with Bilal, was made for Ava DuVernay’s 13th, her documentary on mass incarceration. In September 2017 that song won Common, Riggins and Glasper the Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. Per the Recording Academy, that made Common the first rapper with a Grammy, an Oscar and an Emmy on the same shelf. Critics heard it straight away: Black America Again scored an 88 on Metacritic. It came out through ARTium and Def Jam, the label that has been home to so much of rap’s history.

Wear It

We made a Common Black America Again tee for the heads who still run “Letter to the Free” back when the news gets heavy. If “Pyramids” sent you back to the source, the ODB Return to the 36 Chambers tee is where that “Brooklyn Zoo” hook was born.

Also Today in Hip-Hop

• 1997: Jay-Z’s In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 and Rakim’s The 18th Letter (29 years). They hit the same day, and DJ Premier was on both. For Jay he did “A Million and One Questions” and “Friend or Foe ’98.” For Rakim he did “It’s Been a Long Time” and “New York (Ya Out There).” The 18th Letter was the God MC’s first new music in five years, since the Eric B. & Rakim run ended.
• 2008: Q-Tip’s The Renaissance (18 years). The Abstract’s comeback came out on Election Day, the night Obama won. It arrived years after his label shelved Kamaal the Abstract.
• 2003: Ja Rule’s Blood in My Eye (23 years). He dedicated the whole album to firing back at 50 Cent, G-Unit and the Shady/Aftermath camp, and took the title from George Jackson’s book. It’s a dated beef receipt, front to back.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team

Jon Jones