Uncommon

The Sgt. Pepper-inspired cover art of Common’s Electric Circus (MCA)—a collage of the rapper’s heroes and peers clustered around an image of his bald pate—leaves little doubt as to where his head is at. Whereas the Brooklyn-based MC’s last album, Like Water for Chocolate, found him augmenting his boho musicality and flow with flourishes of neo-soul, here he explores the convergence between rock and rap. Common’s vision, however, isn’t akin to that of Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park, but rather a bracing fusion of countercultural hip-hop and psychedelic rock.

“Jimi Was a Rock Star,” a paean to guitar god Jimi Hendrix, defines the conceptual heart of the album. “Jimi was a rock star, searching for that magic place in the sky that he could touch just to get his people high,” Common intones with co-writer Erykah Badu. The track—which, like much of the album, was recorded at Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios in New York—ends with a “Purple Haze”-style freak-out incited by a whorl of incantatory voices. “Aquarius” likewise harks back to the 1960s, its pleas for tolerance and community—“holler back, but listen first”—going out over a shambling backbeat and a fuzz-toned guitar. And were it not for its funhouse organ fills (very Ray Manzarek), the dreamy melodicism of “New Wave,” featuring Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab on vocals, might pass for an update of late-’60s “sunshine pop.”

Just as telling is “Star 69 (PS With Love),” a bumping simulation of phone sex that features Prince, no less of a genre-bender than Hendrix, on keyboards and guitar. The Purple One also gets a shout-out on “Aquarius,” while the layered, dirty-toned beats that pervade much of Electric Circus suggest that Common has been listening to the murky, bass-heavy funk of Prince’s Black Album. Common also enlists Bilal, Jill Scott, Mary J. Blige, Cee-Lo of Goodie Mob and ?uestlove of The Roots, among others, to appear on the album; the ubiquitous Neptunes produced “Come Close,” the set’s creamy first single. Yet as the record’s cover art suggests, despite this surfeit of guests, Electric Circus is the music of Common’s mind.

The rapper places less emphasis on his expansive vocabulary and quicksilver delivery than he has on previous albums; however, he does get off bon mots like, “My mind state is black like Bernie Mac” and “I’m getting married soon, walking in the clouds like Mary Bethune.” (The latter is a reference both to pioneering black educator and suffragist Bethune and to Common’s purported engagement to Ms. Badu.) At times the freewheeling proceedings on Electric Circus threaten to unravel, and Common admits as much: “My mind screams like Al Green to stay together.” Mostly, though, he keeps a grip on things, making good on his boast to “take you way out, where you haven’t been before.”

—Bill Friskics-Warren

GZA’s 1995 album Liquid Swords was hardcore hip-hop with a conscience, acknowledging both the appeal of thug life and its deadly consequences. Unfortunately, Beneath the Surface, the MC’s last solo outing, sunk under the weight of a plethora of guest appearances from his talentless crew. While not up to the level of Liquid Swords, GZA’s new Legend of the Liquid Sword (MCA) is pretty impressive. Although he lacks the pop charisma of Method Man, the drugged-out craziness of Ol’ Dirty Bastard or the gangsta flash of Ghostface Killah—all fellow Wu-Tang Clan members—GZA’s lyrics are full of inventive concepts. He imagines the ’hood as a literal jungle on “Animal Planet” and unravels a full-fledged narrative about a small town haunted by a serial killer on “Luminal.” (For what it’s worth, he also avoids profanity and sexist language.) But while Liquid Swords incorporated everything from synth-pop to a string quartet, the beats on Legend of the Liquid Sword are its worst aspect. Dominated by GZA’s flow, little of the music on the album is particularly memorable.

—Steve Erickson

The Roots have strongly influenced the growth of the “neo-soul” movement, writing, producing and playing on tracks by Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Musiq and others. The sound and vibe of those recordings were in part reflected on The Roots’ earlier albums; on their latest, Phrenology (MCA), they seem to have abandoned neo-soul. Amir “?uestlove” Thompson has admitted that the band decided to make this album more in tune with what’s “hot now.” One wouldn’t have expected MC Black Thought could transform into Nelly, but....

Well, not quite. “Break You Off,” the album’s first single, is an R&B-laced groove with a boy-steps-to-girl theme that would have been perfect for LL Cool J. Other than this seeming afterthought, though, there’s nothing on Phrenology—its title a reference to the practice of gauging people’s mental capacity by the shape of their skulls—to suggest that the crew are aiming for an easy road to pop chart success. In fact, the band’s fifth release is perhaps more diverse than any of their previous works, thanks in part to the many guest shots. Fellow Illadelphian Jill Scott is a strong presence on the chorus of “Complexity.” Amiri Baraka shows up to provide a suitable use for spoken-word poetry on “Something in the Way of Things.” Nelly Furtado sings on the dancehall-tinged “Sacrifice,” while “Seed 2.0” features a rock guitar hook and soul singer Cody ChesnuTT.