For the album by Pain of Salvation, see Be (Pain of Salvation album)

Be is a 2005 album by rapper Common, produced by Kanye West and J Dilla. The album reached a peak of #2 on the Billboard 200 pop albums chart, and became Common's second album to sell over 500,000 copies. Currently it has sold 800,000.^[1] Nevertheless, Entertainment Weekly's Tim Stack describes it as "a critical success without blockbuster sales."^[2] Common released Be under West's record label, GOOD Music, and West produced 9 of the 11 songs off the album ("Love Is..." and "It's Your World" are both produced by J Dilla). Containing 11 tracks and spanning about 42 minutes, Be is Common's shortest album. Common considers it and Like Water for Chocolate to be his favorite albums.^[3]

Overview

Title significance

As Common said in a 2005 interview with SixShot.com: "I named it Be to be who you are man and be able to be in the moment and not try too hard. Be is another way of saying just do without trying hard, like I said natural and be true to the core of who you are and this album I wanted to just be and not just go and exist as just an artist not worried about the past."^[4] In an interview with AllHipHop.com, Common reiterated the same point and denied that the album title stood for "Before Erykah."^[3]

Background

Be was touted as Common's comeback album after the commercially disastrous Electric Circus. His new alliance with Kanye West helped to spark public interest in the project. Nas's debut album Illmatic was the biggest influence on Be. The results show that Common was clearly aware, and perhaps agreeing, with the negative criticisms about Electric Circus. In comparison to that album, Be is lean, immediate, and commanding, yet also restrained in its musical ambitions. Many believe it to be his safest album. Of the reaction to the album, the rapper said: "I don't think Electric Circus was as focused. Though I'd done some progressive hip-hop, people know me as the b-boy. When I showed them something different, a different style of b-boy, there were like, "Hold up. You can be Afrocentric, but what's this rock shit that you're doing?"^[5]

Singles

"The Corner"

Common gave his reasons for featuring controversial spoken word recording artists, The Last Poets, on the album's first official single, "The Corner": "They gifted at writing. They voices is incredible. They took my song to a higher level. And that's what hip-hop was about to me. It would have a message. It would take you to the next place. It was fresh as people say -- something new. They brought newness to what "The Corner" was and they also brought some nostalgia, too. Just them being from the '70s and being used in hip-hop and their spirit brought something pure to it. They gave me a better understanding of the corner after that. I knew those who had been listening to hip-hop would know who the Last Poets were and if they didn't they would feel it in their souls sooner or later. And I also felt good about introducing some of the youth to the Last Poets."^[6]

"Go!"

Template:Sound sample box align leftTemplate:Sample box end "Go" was the album's second, and highest charting single. The song featured Kanye West and John Mayer, however all the verses are performed by Common. The song continued Common's now apparent "ladies' man" persona, which began with 2000's "The Light", and 2002's "Come Close". The video for the song included shots of Common surrounded by numerous models.

"Testify"

The album's third single, "Testify" received a type of promotional video known as a "mini-movie"; a term coined by Michael Jackson to describe a music video with a complex plot and a suitably long running time, often with intermissions between the song's parts. The video featured acting parts from Taraji P. Henson, Bill Duke, Steve Harris, and Wood Harris, and received notable spins on specialist channels such as MTV2. The song samples "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" by Honey Cone.

Reception

Critical

Q considers Be to be Common's best album.^[7] Common's lyrics on Be earned him the Lyricist of the Year award at the 2006 BET Hip Hop Awards.

Grammy Nominations

Be was nominated for four 2006 Grammy Awards:

• Best Rap Album, for Be

• Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group, for "The Corner" (featuring The Last Poets) (from Be)

• Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, for "They Say" (featuring Kanye West and John Legend) (from Be)

• Best Rap Song, for writing "Testify" (from Be)

Accolades

Information is taken from AcclaimedMusic.net.^[8]

Track listing

Chart positions

Album

Singles

Unused Tracks

• My Way Home (produced by Kanye West) (appears as a Common solo track on Kanye West's album Late Registration)

Trivia

• Many of the beats by Kanye that Common rejected for this project appeared on the Kanye West album Late Registration

References

External links

• XXL Calls 'Be' a Classic
• Common Hoping To Get Kanye To Work On His New Album Tentatively Titled "Finding Forever"