Common Refines His Late-Career Sound on ‘Black America Again’

Aryeh Harris-Shapiro

On his new album, “Black America Again,” Chicago rapper Common finds a worthy collaborator in his longtime live drummer Karriem Riggins, who has produced one of the rapper’s most vibrant and relaxed album in years. The album starts out strong, gets dragged down by some cheesy lyrics as it plays on, but packs enough of his smooth vocal groove to please the long-time fans.

The career of Common, birth name Lonnie Lynn, started in 1992 with his debut, “Can I Borrow a Dollar?” and can be split into many phases, but a dividing line is 2005’s “Be.” That album heralded Common’s full-on embrace of the coffee house aesthetic, excellent easy-listening rap produced under the soulful eye of Kanye West. The album was a massive success, but Common struggled to follow it up as his subsequent efforts didn’t quite connect.

Part of that comes down to the production, as Common has struggled to find someone who complements his buttery-smooth voice as well as West. Luckily, he may have found his perfect collaborator in jazz musician Riggins, whose snapping drums and crystal piano chords blend boom-bap and neo-soul into a musical foundation that highlights Common’s smoothness while retaining the edge he’s struggled to present in his post-Hollywood career.

The best songs on “Black America Again” come right up top, with the one-two-three punch of “Joy and Peace,” “Home,” and “Black America Again.” Common sounds 10 years younger over Riggins’ up-tempo, horn-laced gospel hybrids, and the title track is also the closest the album comes to Common’s best work.

The opening lines “Here we go again/Trayvon’ll never get to be an older man,” point toward the weariness implicit in the album’s title. “Black America Again” deals with the persistence of the narrative that has defined stories such as Martin’s, the repeated wounds suffered by black America and the persistent struggle to tell that story. When the album hones in on this subject, as on songs like “Rain” and the autobiographical “Little Chicago Boy,” it excels.

However, the song ends with a coda quote from Stevie Wonder, who repeatedly sings “We are rewriting the black American story,” until the song fades out. It’s beautiful-sounding, heartfelt, but too awkward and obvious.

The rest of the album doesn’t live up to its opening moments, although it remains mostly listenable. The worst tracks are consistently Common’s attempts at addressing the female gender, his Achilles’ heel since the start of his career. “Love Star” is peak corny horndog Common, featuring lines such as “When two souls connect, you can’t fake it/TV Shows and cakes, I know your favorite.”

“The Day Women Took Over” is downright embarrassing, a song-length exercise in pedestal-placing that insists in a future utopia based on, among other things, “monthly free doses of Motrin and Valerian for your menstrual/It’s no more minstrel shows/Depicting women as ignorant simple hoes.” The song, like most of Common’s mistakes, is well-intentioned. But listen to lines such as “Dude said I was a hero/I ain’t nothing but a sandwich/A gluten-free one at that.” Good intentions don’t matter delivered in cringe-worthy execution. Even leaving that aside, the songs blend together more and more as the album progresses and verges more towards smoothed-out neo-soul, musical territory Common has explored to death on previous efforts.

“Black America Again” remains eminently beautiful and listenable, but it isn’t nearly as incisive as statement piece “To Pimp a Butterfly,” as accomplished as “Black Messiah,” or as personal as “A Seat at the Table.” It’s probably Common’s best album since “Be,” but it won’t have nearly the staying power that record did. Still, anyone onboard with Common’s message and in love with his voice will find “Black America Again” an enjoyable experience.

“Black America Again” is available on Apple Music Nov. 4