A Letter To Common

C-to-the-double-M-O-N - Un_i_versal M_!_nd Control (Planet Rock Remix) | z/s/h/a/r/e
Bonus: C-to-the-double-M-O-N ft Chest_er Fren_ch - What A Wo_rld | z/s/h/a/r/e

Common dropped his newest album "Universal Mind Control" recently and I came across this and I HAD to re-post it.  Here's one opinion on Common's new album:

Dear Mr. Sense:

First of all, I would like to congratulate you on releasing your new album, “Resurrection.” I don’t want to spoil anything for you because I’m writing from the future in the year 2024 but we will still talking about that album thirty years from now. In fact, that album is so good, you will be eating off the reputation that album garnered for you for the rest of your life and plenty of people will excuse a lot of questionable material you will be releasing in the near future because of how great songs like “Communism” are. I mean people will be frontin’ on “I Used To Love H.E.R.” like that song wasn’t the fucking shit in 1994 but those people like Shawty Lo records so fuck ‘em. I’m sorry you don’t know who Shawty Lo is yet, do you? He was part of this ass awful group called D4L in the mid ‘00s and beefed with T.I. for a little while over whether or not they actually grew up in this backwater town called Bankhead like anybody gives a flying fornication. I know, it will be as retarded as it sounds. Oh, yeah, that’s right you haven’t met T.I., either. You’ll be playing his father in a film called “American Gangster” in about 12 years so don’t sweat it. I know, it’ll be creepy. Actually, just forget it. All in due time.

Anyway, the reason that I’m writing you today is because I’m compelled to warn you as a fan of yours about the upcoming disaster that will be your future album called “Universal Mind Control” in the year 2008. It’s imperative that you do not make this album. The entire fabric of existence depends on it. “Universal Mind Control” isn’t just bad. It’s legendarily bad. It’s “This is album is so bad it negates the existence of God bad. Like I mean there can’t possibly be a supreme being if he allowed a travesty like this to occur” bad. There’s absolutely nothing salvageable about this album. You need to stop this before it occurs. I’m begging you. Wars started in foreign countries over this album when it was released. You ever see the movie, Scanners? At least, sixty people had their heads spontaneously explode attempting to listen to this album. Please, I beg of you. Do not attempt.

Listen, in the future you will meet a man by the name of Pharrell. He’s this goofy ass skinny dude who wears all types of hideously gaudy clothes, he sings in this hyper annoying falsetto and he’ll have this Asian guy (which nobody can seem to figure out actually does for a living...) follow him around all the time . He’ll try to seduce you by jetting you around the globe in his private plane, have you cavorting with models, and introduce you to a short, motor mouthed actor with an immaculate hairpiece that will soon become you’re best friend. You need to kill him upon meeting him. Despite the fact the man has only about a dozen, truly great songs to his name, he will have garnered a ridiculous amount of unwarranted acclaim and will offer to produce your latest album for you. You must resist. The beats on “Universal Mind Control” are truly hideous and are bad even by his standards. It sounds like this weird amalgamation of Baltimore Club Music, Danger Mouse, and Just Blaze’s worst, most ostentatious impulses in a way that completely fails and causes one to question the creator’s influences. The first time I heard the title track, I was convinced I was listening to an ill-conceived Girl Talk (as if there was anything else) mash-up of some bad Bmore Club and a drunken freestyle that No I.D. dared you to record while drinking orange pineapple juice laced with vodka. And that’s only the opening record! It only gets worse from there. I’m talking records that inexplicably bite Biggie’s flow in a sub-Guerilla Black manner; records that reference Gladiator (and are actually called “Gladiator”) as if “What More Can I Say” didn’t happen; and there’s actually a record called “Sex 4 Sugar. Completely without irony.

And as a bad as Pharrell is on the album, the problem is primarily you. In approximately the year 2005, after doing one too many advertisements for the Gap, the soft feel of their 100% cotton sweaters will cause you to completely lose your ability to rap but instead of doing the sensible thing and completely retire from rap as if you were Mos Def, you will continue to force yourself on the listening public. You will embarrass yourself on this record. Badly. There are songs on this record where there will be no semblance of flow and rhythm on your part. This wouldn’t necessarily be bad if you weren’t rapping about some generic, cookie cutter version of universal love or some hippie bullshit but you are. This album is the audio equivalent of talking to some douchebag named Moonbeam for an hour while he trips on acid and forces you to go to a rave. It ain’t pretty.

“Universal Mind Control” must not happen, Common. You have the power to stop it. You must resist all impulses in the future to do anything that doesn’t sound like “Thisisme,” It will hurt because you will feel that you are better than hip hop but you are not. You are definitely not. Trust me. Lives were lost because of this. This album was directly responsible for the Supreme Court from negating the results from 2008 Presidential Election and ushering in a third Bush term which lead to the death of democracy in America. Lives depend it on, Lonnie. You can change it. Don’t make this album.

Sincerely,

The Good Doctor Zeus

P.S. You should also probably drop the “Sense” part of your name. You’ll thank me later.

P.P.S. In the future, you will meet a woman by the name of Erkyah. This will be in your future.

Awesome - Lots of LOLZ in that one.  Thoughts?