Common drops new album!

Ladies and gentlemen.  Boys and girls.  Hip hop heads and Puff Daddy fans.

Common, that illustrious, fantastic Chi-town rapper has announced that his new album Invincible Summer will be dropping on June 24th.  This announcement really came out of no where.  Pitchfork broke the news today.

Common hasn’t exactly been consistent the last few years, dropping some albums which were definitely better than others.  Be and Finding Forever were both pretty stellar but Electric Circus before that really…wasn’t.  I absolutely appreciate Common’s attempt to expand his horizons and explore new talents, so I was totally willing to give it all a listen.

Pitchfork is also saying that Kanye West did not produce this album.  I’m honestly not a huge Kanye fan, but I’ll be one of the first to admit that his beats are pretty catchy.  He’s got some semblance of a Timbaland-touch when it comes to making beats for other artists too.  Despite his overuse of samples of kids singing, he did a pretty decent job for Common so far.  Instead, Mr. DJ (of Outkast fame) and apparently the Neptunes will step up to the plate.

I’ve got to admit I’m pretty excited for this album to drop.

Those of you who loved Common’s acting in American Gangster, he’s got a job acting in the new Terminator movie (across from Christian Bale apparently).  This is also another good sign, and yet another thing that makes it seem like him and Andre Benjamin are having a life rivalry.   First they both date Erykah Badu, they both release award winning hip hop albums, and they both do their best to act in as many films as possible.

So far, though I love Andre, I think Common is winning.