Fri 13 Jan 2012
Common Claims Drake Battle Is Really Just About Competitive Hip-Hop
Posted by Mikey Fresh under beef[23] Comments
Wherever Common goes he’s forced to talk about his current “rap battle” with Drake. At this point, he pretty much says the same thing every time. I guess we were a little thrown off about the seriousness of this “beef” when Comm responded to Drake quite viciously on his “Stay Schemin’” freestyle. However, in his most recent explanation of how their feud originated, the veteran downplays their issues being personal.
“The Song Sweet– for me I was really talking about hip-hop. A lot of the softer side of hip-hop is being used as an example of what people think hip-hop is. You can express yourself in many different ways, but I just miss that hardcore, raw hip-hop sound,” Common told VIBE’s Datwon Thomas on DJ Premier’s Hip-Hop Nation show.
Common did admit that he felt like Drake was responding to him at the Cali Christmas show. Ultimately, Comm says this battle is really just about being competitive in hip-hop. He alludes to the fact that he’s really doing this for sport and doesn’t seeing it turning into a real street beef.
Listen to the full interview after the jump…
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January 13th, 2012 at 4:36 pm
Common should cut it out. It wasn’t that long ago when he was getting clowned for doing emo hiphop and wearing croshay pants. It hurts my heart to see legends acting like this to sell records. Drake responding to him is the best thing to happen to him musically since Kanye West saved his floundering career. He should get together with Lil Kim and make a has-beens mixtape.
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spirit equality Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 1:34 am
His career wasn’t “floundering” pre-Kanye, he still managed to sell a quarter million units of “Electric Circus” in the middle of his label MCA imploding and despite mixed public response to the record (which was a complete shift from the gold record he had just put out). Common was definitely helped by the Kanye association and earned a gold plaque with Be, but he was then and has remained in a better career position than every other rapper who debuted in 92. Lil Kim? Are you seriously comparing Common’s current career position to Kim’s?
He has a TV show, a new album that debuted decently even before this little skirmish, etc. Drake’s response didn’t add appreciably to Com’s numbers, at all, despite what you say above. The problem has to do with a shift in the marketplace: Who else making music like Common does numbers anywhere near him? Lupe and…? Com’s current numbers are on pace to probably match the numbers Nas put up with his Damian Marley collabo project. The unfortunate thing is that rap fans stopped buying records with good beats and good rhymes. Shrug.
Com has a 20 year career, with gold albums over 10 years into that. Will Drake go gold 10 years into his career? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
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London Town Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 11:18 pm
TOO RIGHT! Salute
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Nightfall Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 6:26 pm
A floundering career? Trying to Sell Records? Has-Been?
Those are great one liners….just lacking a few facts.
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January 13th, 2012 at 4:47 pm
common misses the harder sound, like everything on “like water for chocolate” i presume? gtfo. why won’t anyone call him on his b.s.?
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Truf.com Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 5:09 pm
because Common has two sets of fans. Everyone before “Be”, and everyone after “Be”
The fans pre-Be were f*cking with him up until Electric Circus (“Come Close” is still a banger though).
Post-Be are mostly Kanye nuthuggers, hipsters, people who don’t raw hip hop for the most part (but like their hip hop a little more neutered).
and that’s where Com is at. A neutered dude.
I’m not asking him to take it back to the streets and sell drugs. That’s not it. I just miss his sharp intellect and feel. You hear “Bitch in Yoo”, “Invocation”, “Hungry”, “6th Sense”… intelligent hunger, raw hip hop.
which Com just doesn’t have anymore.
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Angry Gillmore Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 7:04 pm
co-signed* and also you cant compare water for choclate to drake take care; drake is literally singing on his album. That album is a R n b album with hip hop under tones, I still think its a great album and I’ve always endorsed drake from get go i like he was able to merge r n b and hip hop. I embrace it for what it is. Somewhere in the mainstream culture the lines in hip hop have been blurred but common is far from R n B and hes right it has gotten soft in regards to the tone of the music. I’m not placing anyone in a box or taking sides; i enjoy both as artist but if anyone deserves to be put in a soft pop / r n b category its drake.
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spirit equality Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 1:38 am
Com had a song called “Gladiator” off of “Universal Mind Control” that had that “Hungry”/”Invocation” feel. He can do it if he wants to, I think, but the marketplace has shifted: your post-Be crowd analysis points to that.
Best case scenario? The Slaughterhouse album does numbers and artists get encouraged to return to more ferocious bars, with label support to match…
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Ashim Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 2:20 am
Honestly? Fuck your opinion. I’ve fucked with Comm’s music pre Be and after Be, and yes, he has missteps, like every rapper who did it as long as he has (even Jay has missteps, and he has probably the best catalogue in hip hop history) but it’s not neutered music. It’s growth. Comm has done what Janet Jackson failed to do, what Ice Cube failed to do, what most rappers honestly fail to do, and that’s grow with their fanbase. If you pick up a few new fans along the way, great, but it’s not pre Be and Before Be fans, it’s Common Sense fans and a couple of new guys. And that’s fine. For the grown folks listening, like myself, I was in one place in my like around Ressurection and Can I Borrow A Dollar, and now I’m in another. Comm apparently is too, and that works for me. I think the biggest mistake rappers and artist in general make is forgetting their demographic are people who grow and change, and try to make the same music they made 10 years ago and hope it appeals to the same fans. There is a reason I don’t buy new Mobb Deep records — they don’t live that life anymore and more importantly, neither do I. So if I’m listening to Hell On Earth it’s because at one point it was dope as hell to me that a kid around my age was talking about the shit I was doing at that time. Nostalgia. If I was doing the same shit now, it’d just be sad. I like Comm’s new album, but he can’t front — it’s mad melodic. Which I like BTW. I like the song Sweet, it’s something that needs to be said… Just cause something is hypocritical to say doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
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bullets Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 7:40 am
Because most people dont know there hiphop history and a person being enlightened or intelligent doesnt make them soft common comes from the beats and rhymes era he did make softer music when music got softer. Lets be for real you cant put Drake in any real battle category except popularity! A interviewer asked him if “SWEET” was for Drake and he said he falls into that category he can take it however Drake took the bait so i dont see how this is a selling records ploy for common Drake wants to be subliminal and in case you havent noticed the guy makes music w/ Kanye west his record sales are fine…
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Nightfall Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 6:30 pm
It’s not about “Missing” the harder sound cuz their are plenty of people that make it. He said the softer tones of Hip Hop are being out out as the overall definition of what Hip Hop is. As has been said forever on this site.
“There is no balance.”
It’s just a game of follow the leader with everyone able to claim how great they are but never have to prove it.
Every time you claim to be the best you get tested. Nas, Jay, Big, Dre, Snoop, Cube, Luda, Scarface, T.I and so on….they all did it. Why cant Drake?
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January 13th, 2012 at 5:42 pm
It seems like one-dimensional hip-hop has created these one-dimensional fans that can’t grasp a person representing their own complexity or any range of themes and emotions through their music. Sure Common makes some sweet songs but he also makes street music, party music and political music.
If rappers had a problem with Common for making soft music they sure as hell didn’t have the heart to call him out on it.
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January 13th, 2012 at 9:25 pm
Rap now is that watered down shit. It’s not raw. Like Big Ghost said, it’s a bunch of microwaved shit. Where the hunger? Where’s the representation of the streets where hip hop came from? Nowadays it seems like everybody thinks they can rap. Pop singers, actors, R&B singers. Damn near every song on the radio has some singer all over the hook, with the rapper spitting some really lazy, uncreative shit, and the same beat making machine sounding beats.
Common never was, or ever claimed to be hard. Even on Electric Circus, he wasn’t at his best, but that shift in his sound can be attributed to growth. You stupid Drake fans are quick to point to that era, not knowing the nigga had four albums previous to that. Bangers throughout. Drake’s been simping and whining since the first album. Dude is completely manufactured. He’s that safe, non-controversial light skinned Negro that the mainstream media needs. I dare him to say something of substance instead of being Captain Save A Ho on records.
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January 14th, 2012 at 3:07 am
@hi-c u can’t call somebody a “legend” and a “has-been” in the same breathe. “Sweet” wasn’t even directed at anybody directly, so to say that he was trying to sell records is some bs. U don’t have to try to sell an album with four tracks that got radio/video play. In true “sweet” fashion, Drake felt bitch and spoke out. Saying nothing about his musical style but instead that he isn’t soft. Riiight drake.
@jwill common came from an era where cats didn’t roll with bodyguards. An era where getting snuffed WASN’T a crime. Don’t get it twisted or forget, he went at niggas necks with that ice cube beef too. Rap did used to be more hardcore, meaning more cats that were actually nice, tested and proved, and who gave a fuck. Real niggas got love not niggas like oj da juiceman, lil b or waka flacka. No swag, no gimmicks, no movement. JUST REAL RAP
@false niggas can’t grow up? Would u REALLY be talking about the same subject matter that u did 15 years ago?
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January 14th, 2012 at 4:54 am
I beg to differ.. While everybody wants to give “younger dudes” a pass by always sehing “legends shouldn’t be engaging the young guns” I personally believe a little competition just for the sport is perfectly fine with me. A little bit of calling out some other rapper on some bullshit and give people something to talk about, it won’t hurt anybody in the situation. I think as fans we can only get some interesting music, something different from the regular cookie-cutter bs.
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January 14th, 2012 at 5:09 am
Who Cares… daddy got’em
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January 14th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
What amaze me is u Drake fans want to cry out that it is to sell records. When Jay did the same thing with DOA know one had anything to say.. he release that and got at everyone doing autotune. Common did sweet addressing everyone singing in hip hop and its a problem.
yea he went thru a growing period in musically but who doesnt. so now he cant go back to what he does?? FOH!
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January 14th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
I was there at Sirius for that interview/”performance”. Love my man Comm’ but damn he is boring. Everyone started leaving before the set was even over.
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January 14th, 2012 at 5:26 pm
Where are all of the people who were on the post about his remix of Stay Schemin calling him street and hard…smh
This is why I couldn’t get with this beef…the man says this is not personal just about hip hop…but that wasn’t the hip hop you were about. “Sweet” doesn’t even fit on the album you just put out. Your last few albums have been the “intellectual lets raise up the consciousness of the people” joints and now you beefin’ and it is all
Ppl wanna call Drake soft cool I can understand that, but if Common is what is hard than damn it we have a problem cause both of them are JUST ALIKE (except Common can’t hold a note…even with auto tune)
Can ppl just make music…and let the ppl who enjoy it enjoy it, and if you don’t move the hell on…Damn don’t we have enough wars going on in REAL life not to manufacture BS ones over who is hard or not, who is real hip hop or not…ain’t NOTHING real any more if you ask “old school” I remember my father talking about how “my rap” was garbage because he grew up with Gil Scott Heron and that generation.
Truth is we all want what we are used to..it makes us comfortable because it is what we like.And scary ass people hate seeing anything new that doesn’t resemble what they like. Through in your biggie and Pac, your old Nas and Common and EPMD if that is what is hip hop to you and let go of the whole what is real hip hop argument, because just like there will never be an answer to what is real rock and roll neither will there be one for what is real hip hop? Can we just have MUSIC…
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Nike Champ 718 Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Common doesn’t try to sing. Drake does, sucks at it, and autotune makes it worse.
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January 16th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
If this is about hip hop being ‘softer’ as a whole then he wouldn’t have targeted one artist. This sudden reinvention is soooooo transparent. Because he’s a better lyricist, this is kinda like shooting fish in a barrel – and that’s not ‘competition’, which in turn is not HIP- HOP. Since I’m a fan I of both artists I can forgive him, but he needs to take seat (like right now) _/ .
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January 16th, 2012 at 11:32 pm
I wonder why people are talking around Baby saying their “brand” isn’t about “making records off of other people” when that’s exactly the basis of Nicki Minaj’s direction these days. GTFOH! I’m still wondering where Canada Dry’s rebuttal is at…it’s over a week later and he’s trying to hope this dies down and he’s ADHD “fans” forget about it.
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January 17th, 2012 at 11:20 am
Common is to Drake what Rolex is to Seiko…Sweet!!
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