Common| Electric Circus

Dirty Dre

Click to here first single from the album.

Electric Circus

Electric Circus is an album by rapper Common, released in December 2002. The album was highly anticipated, and although many critics praised it for its ambitious vision, it didn't sell as well as his previous album, Like Water for Chocolate. An eclectic album, it features fusions of several genres such as Hip hop, Pop, Rock, Electronic, and Neo Soul. This was Common's second and last album for MCA Records, released prior to their absorption under Geffen.

Album cover

The album's cover appears to be a nod to The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, another work known for its experimental nature. The images (a mixture of known personalities, personal friends, and family of the artist) represent those directly or indirectly involved in, or influential to the making of the album.

Background

Common worked with a large (and eclectic) number of musicians on Electric Circus. Among them were Mary J. Blige (who provided vocals for the album's lead single, "Come Close"), The Neptunes, Laetitia Sadier (of Stereolab), Cee-Lo, Bilal and Jill Scott. The music on Electric Circus challenges the boundaries of the hip hop genre in a similar fashion to The Roots' Phrenology (2002) and Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003). This is especially the case on tracks like the grungy "Electric Wire Hustler Flower" (featuring P.O.D.'s Sonny Sandoval in the chorus), the abstract "Aquarius", and the electronic "New Wave". Erykah Badu joins Common for a duet on ("Jimi Was A Rock Star"), which is a dedication to Jimi Hendrix. The second Neptunes collaboration on the record, the cross-genre "I Got A Right Ta", is a musical departure from the styles of both artists, and features Pharrell Williams singing the hook in a blues-inspired style. A triumphant sounding Common proclaims himself "the only cat in hip hop that can go into a thrift shop, bring that get up to the ghetto and get props". The song was placed on the B-Side of "Come Close". "Between Me, You & Liberation", in which Common discusses sexual abuse and its effects on a young woman, confronting his homophobia after learning about the sexual preference of a longtime friend, and the loss of a relative to cancer, contains themes wholly unusual for a rap song, and is perhaps, the rapper's most vulnerable moment on record.About "Liberation..." Pop Matters wrote that it's "one of those rare occasions when a male hip-hop artist owns up to his investment in some of the genre's more unsavory sexual politics". Musically, the song is very downbeat and moody, and features a guest spot from rapper/singer/producer Cee-Lo (making this the pair's third collaboration after One Day It'll All Make Sense's "G.O.D.", and Like Water For Chocolate's "A Song For Assata"). Following LWFC's tributes to Fela Kuti, and Assata Shakur, Electric Circus pays homage to someone altogether more familiar (Jimi Hendrix) on "Jimi Was A Rock Star". The 8 minute-plus song is a duet between Common and his then-girlfriend Erykah Badu, which gradually builds up into its cryptic, chanting finale. This song is Common's first all-singing performance.