CD Reviews

Common

Finding Forever | Geffen

By NICK SYLVESTER | August 14, 2007

2.0 Stars

Can you fault a Second City 35-year-old Gap-shilling rapper for wanting to make elevator hip-hop for Second City 35-year-old Gap-wearing yuppies? There is a place in this world (Pottery Barn maybe, or a future Eddie Murphy romantic comedy) for the R(ap)&B cocktail party that is Finding Forever. “A conscious nigga with mack like Steve Jobs,” Common is this party’s large-hearted host, passing around the demon weed, treating ladies like ladies and telling them so, forgiving hustlers and druggies ’cause they’ve just lost their way. With the exception of Game, no rapper gives more shout-outs. This is a rapper, moreover, who won’t call a man a homosexual unless he’s positive that man is a homosexual (“Your clothes are tight but you don’t seem gay/I said, naw, that’s dude from N-Sync-ay’ ”). Even when Com fumes (“With 12 monkeys on the stage it’s hard to see who’s a guerrilla/You was better as a drug dealer”), there’s always producer Kanye West’s velvet Velveeta soul to calm him down. These beats aren’t West’s typical high-energy dazzlers, but they’re comfy for sure, smoothed over with frequent Soulquarian guest spots. For close to eight minutes of the gospel piano march “Forever Begins,” Common and his pops observe the rising price of gas, the death of J Dilla, tsunamis, “Virginia Tech is not an ‘Oh what the heck,’ ” and various other events that lead them to conclude that things done changed. Yes: Common has become hip-hop’s Mitch Albom. Who wants a martini?